P2P is not a Four Letter Word – “P2P Backups” Certainly isn’t

Vembu Technologies, a leading provider of innovative backup and storage solutions, has announced the release of version 1.5 of Vembu StoreGrid, a flexible desktop backup software that simply works with your existing hardware! StoreGrid can enable Peer to Peer, Client-Server, and Remote Online Backups. An innovative concept, Peer-to-Peer backups are the result of applying P2P principles to desktop and laptop backups.
StoreGrid helps users back up data on their desktops and laptops on to free hard disk space on their peers’ machines. A group of ‘trusted peers’ simply install StoreGrid on a bunch of networked machines, and the machines discover each other to create a Storage Grid for backups. Considering the continual increase in hard disk capacities in personal computers and the corresponding increase in unutilised space, most small networks have backup infrastructure right under their noses. This is particularly relevant to home and Small Office Home Office (SoHo) users running small networks without elaborate backup infrastructure.
As the company’s website at www.vembu.com details, StoreGrid works very well with traditional client-server backups, and relatively recent ‘online backups’ as well. Simply run StoreGrid on a server, and you could have multiple clients backing up to it. SMBs and Enterprise workgroups are using StoreGrid to back up desktop data. Gartner, IDC and the Meta Group mention that between 40-80% of a company’s business critical data resides on PCs - this is often an ignored area in most corporate backup strategies.
StoreGrid works on the Windows, Linux, Mac & FreeBSD operating systems, and this is good news for the many Linux Server users who have become especially vocal after Google’s statements on using Linux at the recent LinuxWorld conference!
While StoreGrid’s flexibility is expected to appeal to a broad spectrum of users from Home/SoHo to Small & Medium Businesses to Enterprise Workgroups, its features have also found an interested audience in online backup providers and other Value Added Resellers (VARs). Considering the diversity in the typical VAR’s clients’ requirements and infrastructure, StoreGrid’s flexibility and multi-platform support help address this diversity.
The company reports “StoreGrid 1.5 features include encryption, configurable compression, server management, detailed reporting, versioning, and whole bunch of features – not all of which are required by the average Home/SoHo user”. As a consequence, Vembu Technologies is also working on “StoreGrid Diet”, a simpler version of the existing software – meant exclusively for Home/SoHo users.
Vembu Technologies offers a free trial of StoreGrid 1.5 on its website at www.vembu.com. The company offers different pricing options - annual subscription licenses and perpetual licenses are offered. A single user annual subscription license to StoreGrid 1.5 Professional Edition is priced at US$ 19.95
About Vembu Technologies:
Vembu Technologies is a leading provider of innovative backup and storage solutions. Vembu’s flagship product “StoreGrid” is a flexible desktop and laptop backup software that simply works with your existing hardware! StoreGrid facilitates trusted peer-to-peer backups, network backups, traditional client-server backups, online backups, and more. Vembu plans to develop more innovative products in the storage domain, all with one objective: that of making storage and backup affordable and "easy to deploy and manage" for a broad spectrum of users. Vembu Technologies is located in Chennai, India