BakBone Software is presenting a free-use edition of its flagship data protection product, NetVault: Backup. The free version of the backup software, available for Red Hat Linux users, is designed to define, manage, and monitor jobs across the heterogeneous environments of SMBs. Says Amber Winans, marketing director for BakBone, "The free-use edition offers Red Hat customers a vehicle to leverage enterprise-class functionality with the economics of open source."

NetVault: Backup lets administrators define, manage, and monitor jobs from remote clients while taking advantage of flexible notification features. A virtual tape library emulates a physical tape library on disk, letting customers run unattended backups to reduce bottlenecks. The free version of the solution includes 30 predefined reports that users can modify, view dynamically, run conditionally, or schedule; and users can take advantage of 500 GB of available storage. With an upgrade, users can also access application plug-in modules, NDMP support, tape drives, and tape library slots.

--Erin Bradford, systems management & availability editor