Efficiently backup PST files with PST Backup Attender

Srinivasan Balaji  November 10 2009 04:30:00 PM

One of the most common e-mail management problems we hear about, especially on the Exchange side of the house, is the management of PST files. In the past couple of years, there has been a distinct shift towards moving user archived messages away from PST files and into centrally managed repositories; however, we still run across a number of organizations supporting and attempting to manage user created PST files.

Although PST files are created using Microsoft Outlook on users' computers, many companies, in an attempt to facilitate easier backup and disaster recovery mechanisms, choose to store these PST files on network shares. This, however, is a configuration not recommended by Microsoft, as described in this knowledgebase article. There are utilities currently available to facilitate the backup of PST files from user desktops to network shares, but many of them involve backing up the entire PST file each time, causing inconvenient delays and potentially tremendous network loads.

This fall Sherpa Software is pleased to introduce PST Backup Attender, a new product to complement its current suite of e-mail management solutions. Designed as a stand-alone desktop utility, PST Backup Attender provides organizations the option of leaving PST files on users' computers and periodically backing them up quickly and efficiently. The simple idea behind PST Backup Attender is contents of PST files are backed up to a network share as individually zipped .MSG files, allowing for subsequent back up processes to only have to save the incremental changes to the PST rather than the entire PST file. Additionally, the method used to access the PST file allows for the backup process to be completed while the PST is in use, with no disruptions to the user.

In addition to the backup capability, PST Backup Attender includes a few basic policy enforcement features as well. All configuration and schedule settings for the product are maintained in the system registry. This light-weight product and all of its settings can be easily deployed to user desktops using group policy or some other desktop software distribution mechanism. Once installed, the application will launch automatically and run silently in the background of the users' systems.

More details on PST Backup Attender are available here. And please stay tuned for product release and evaluation details.

• Comments [0]