MiraLink looks to mirror data to protect it 1 November, 2005 By Liam Lahey

Admittedly, much of the details are still being ironed out. Nevertheless the company -- founded by CEO and president Ron McCabe who received Novell's blessings to proceed alone after failing to convince Novell clustering over distance was less advantageous than mirroring data over a decade ago -- believes it has an affordable, scalable solution that is a requirement of every conceivable business vertical.

There are significant sales and marketing challenges yet to be conquered, but it hasn't squelched enthusiasm at the Portland, Ore.-based firm.

"By leveraging our solutions businesses can take a more proactive approach toward business continuity by increasing data integrity, reliability and availability instantly," said Sherri Bakos, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for MiraLink. "Now with the MiraLink Partner Program, we're enabling our partners to bring preventative disaster recovery solutions to their portfolio of customers with an affordable and easy to deploy package.

"This is a very broad market so we need our partners to be experts with their respective offerings, whether they use us as an add-on to what they're offering to their customers, or for a partner that is a business continuity expert."

MiraLink's disaster recovery solutions are designed so businesses can make an instantaneous copy of pertinent corporate data regardless of their location, including whether or not a packet is in transit when lightning strikes.

"Traditionally, the problem with these types of solutions and from what we've heard from the users we've spoken to is it was akin to cleaning one's bedroom with a nuclear bomb; it was overkill," McCabe said. "It was important to us to deliver data protection that could be supported at the reseller base . . . we also talked to potential clients and the long and short of it was remote data protection is costly, too complicated, and it required a high level of support from the vendor."

Moreover, McCabe said users had issues surrounding vendor lock in and infrastructure costs. Thus, MiraLink came up with a line of appliances that addressed all of the above, he said.

MiraLink's solutions integrate into existing infrastructures. Based upon the company's Data Mirroring Engine technology, the solutions allow businesses to make copies of key company data using a standard IP-based connection. The product is as easy to install and manage as a hard drive, and as a result, businesses reduce operational costs while improving business continuity, he said.

The MiraLink solutions include a plug-and-play disaster recovery methodology, as customers can mirror data from a server or storage network remotely accross any transmission media to any remote location with no distance limitations. It is designed as a non-intrusive solution that works with existing infrastructure and one that is application agnostic. Moreover, officials said the solution transmits block level data changes to a remote site and automatically manages interrupted transmissions and it can use standard IP connections.

Inarguably, there is a need for that which MiraLink provides. The worldwide security and business continuity market is forecast to gain momentum through 2005 reaching a 15 per cent growth rate all translating into over $118 billion in spending by 2007, according to IDC Corp.'s "Security and Business Continuity Forecast 2004 -- 2009".

Meanwhile, the MiraLink Partner Program offers Platinum, Premium and Certified levels. Designed to match partners' specific business needs, all three-program levels provide robust marketing, sales tools, risk free trials, discounts as well as additional benefits depending on partner level, officials said.

Certified partners receive product and maintenance discounts, free partner sales and technical training, quarterly newsletter and technical support. Gold Partners can receive up to 20 per cent discounts on registered product and maintenance sales.

The Premier partner level includes all the benefits of the Certified partner plus complimentary partner sales and technical training and co-marketing opportunities. Premier partners can receive up to 30 per cent discounts on registered product and maintenance sales.

The Platinum level includes all the benefits of the Premier partner plus increased discounts on products and services, and insight into future product development. Platinum partners can receive up to 40 per cent discounts on all pre-registered sales.

Bakos said MiraLink is keen to avoid any potential channel conflicts with regards to the geography or vertical business its partners are in. That said she wouldn't put ceiling at this juncture as to the number of partners the company would ultimately sign.

"We're looking for a variety of folks with existing customer bases both geographically and vertically . . . we don't want to recruit so many partners that channel conflict becomes an issue," she said. "The partner membership is annual, so it is flexible in terms of moving partners in or out."

MiraLink's products also support U.S. regulatory compliance initiatives including Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and SEC17a-4.

MiraLink's disaster recovery solutions start at $5,000 (U.S.) for the low-end MiraLink 500 SMB solution, and go as high as $50,000 for the MiraLink 3000 enterprise and co-location appliance, officials said.