Letters to the Editor
All opinions expressed in this letter are those of Idera and do not
reflect the opinions of SQL Server Magazine or Penton Media.
No responsibility is accepted by Penton Media for the accuracy
of any statements, opinions, or advice contained in this letter,
and readers should rely upon their own enquiries when making
any decisions affecting their own interests.
A Misfire in the Shootout?
The April edition of SQL Server Magazine contained a
comparative review [“SQL Server Backup Compression
Shootout,” April 2008, InstantDoc ID 98180] of three
backup and recovery products for SQL Server from
HyperBac, Red Gate, and Idera. At Idera, we respect
and appreciate the integrity of your publication and the
technical abilities of your review team; however, in this
particular review, we believe the results to be misleading.
The Idera SQLsafe backup and recovery product provides
a powerful feature set addressing performance,
manageability, and scalability. These features do not
appear to have been effectively exercised and reviewed
consistently across the three products.
Idera SQLsafe is a powerful backup and recovery
system for SQL Server that provides considerably
more than just backup compression. It is designed to
automate, manage, and audit backup and recovery
operations across tens or hundreds of servers often
performing millions of backups per year. Had we more
clearly understood the criteria and goals of the review,
we would have submitted the free edition of our SQLsafe
product, which has a footprint and functionality
set more comparable to Red Gate and HyperBac.
Given the above, we would ask your readers to
review our more detailed response in the online edition
of the article and then download the products and try
them out for themselves in their own environment, the
true test of any product.
—Heather Sullivan, product manager, Idera