FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 4-22-05: John Cleese Does Backup...And So Does Microsoft

Here’s one for the backup bestseller list: John Cleese of Monty Python fame stars in “The Institute for Backup Trauma,” a web video advertising LiveVault’s disk-based backups. (And as if to illustrate what the video says about the drawbacks of tape backups, Ameritrade has had to admit to 200,000 customers that their financial data has gone missing along with a backup tape.)

“Viral video,” as this type of ad campaign is being called, could be the best thing that’s happened to the backup industry. It’s certainly the best thing that’s happened to LiveVault: they’d had 150,000 new product downloads as of Monday. I’m sure the folks from TapeSucks.com are cheering.

You can see the video, developed by Thunder Sky Pictures and the Captains of Industry, at www.backuptrauma.com. You’ll need Macromedia Flash Player to view it, but there is a version oriented toward dial-up connection speeds.

One does get the impression from the video that it’s only tape backups which fail, and this, of course, is not true. Hard disk failures are very common things—they’re the main reason that we need backups. In this respect, LiveVault may be dancing on the edge of truth in advertising.

Microsoft, too, is getting into the disk-based backup business with its Data Protection Manager for Windows Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003. There’s a free 680 MB beta available for download and a press release on the subject on the Microsoft website. Unless you’re an IT manager for a large organization, though, you’re going to have much more fun with LiveVault.

And go ahead, click the third button. I dare you.