How much bandwidth does LiveVault use?

LiveVault makes very efficient use of a customer's bandwidth. Using snapshots, LiveVault very efficiently scans a customer's server for just the blocks of files that have changed and then packages and sends those blocks. LiveVault is able to use significantly less bandwidth than other methods of moving data. However, there are certain requirements for bandwidth in order for customers to have successful implementations.

We recommend that a customer have 20 kb/s of upstream bandwidth for each GB of data being protected. For example, a customer with a (1.54 Mb/s) T-1 connection can protect roughly 80 GBs of data with our service without experiencing significant impact to other applications sharing that Internet bandwidth. LiveVault will generally use much less than this guideline. This guideline is designed to provide reasonable room for data growth, as well as to accommodate the ups and downs of daily server activity.

In addition to being very efficient, LiveVault also offers the ability to “throttle” the bandwidth so that customers can decide the maximum bandwidth LiveVault can use at any given point in time on a per server basis. This allows customers to “smooth out” the peaks and valleys of activity that is typical in most server environments. The throttle can be scheduled according to the specific customer requirements.

For customers who utilize the TurboRestore appliance, they are able to schedule the backup to the appliance separately from the backup to the vault. Data goes to the appliance first, then from there is sent to the off-site vault, based on customer-defined schedules. Customers can set-up policies to control the timing and limits on data movement. LiveVault recommends sending the data off-site at least once a day.