A chronology of the SQL Server compressed backup software market from 2001-2007 from a co-founder of LiteSpeed.
In 2001, a small group of developer/DBAs from Melbourne, Australia discovered a significant shortcoming in SQL Server when it came to backing up VLDB databases. It took far too long and consumed an unacceptable amount of disk and tape, in addition the IO workload placed on a SQL Server when moving hundreds of GB (or even TB on rare occasions at that juncture in time). There were no viable alternatives available at the time to relieve these issues. The developers began working on a project which would be called SQL LiteSpeed, later to be re-named LiteSpeed for SQL Server.
The SQL LiteSpeed architecture involved an out of process executable which requested data from SQL Server using the Virtual Device Interface (VDI), an API typically used by the likes of Veritas, Legato, ArcServe, etc to write data to tape (or disk staging areas). The exe was accessed in process from SQL Server by using Extended Stored Procedures (xp_backup_database, xp_restore_database, etc). SQL LiteSpeed was suitable priced and licensed for the SQL Server market at the time and was effectively positioned and marketed to the community, subsequently the product rapidly gained momentum, acceptability and market share.
In early 2004, Insight Venture Partners (a New York based technology investment company) acquired a majority stake in DBAssociatesIT (the founding company for SQL LiteSpeed). Insight appointed the outgoing VP of Sales for Embarcadero as the new CEO. The newly formed entity was named “Imceda”. Over the course of 2004-2005, sales and marketing efforts for the LiteSpeed product intensified substantially.
During the period of 2004-2005, the SQL Server compressed backup market was seen by other vendors to be very lucrative as well and subsequently spawned various other products including Idera’s SQL Safe (released in Q3-2004) and Red Gates SQL Backup (initially called Yohz Mini SQL Backup prior to its acquisition by Red Gate). All of these products essentially mirrored the initial SQL LiteSpeed architecture (invoking the backup from TSQL using extended stored procedures either directly or indirectly). Efforts from all vendors were focused mainly on graphical enhancements to their respective management console interfaces for differentiation.
At this stage, the SQL Server backup wars were raging, with the end users often finding themselves precariously placed in the middle of the battlefield between the various combatants.
In Q2-2005, Imceda was acquired by Quest Software for $60M, and sales and marketing efforts were taken to another level altogether. By this time only one of the original founders of SQL LiteSpeed remained with Quest. The other two co-founders, which included the developer who wad written the entire SQL LiteSpeed engine code, had departed Imceda between Feb and Sep 2004.
After their respective departures from Imceda in 2004 - long before the QSFT acquisition, the two co-founders of SQL LiteSpeed got together to explore an alternative way to achieve the LiteSpeed value with a unique, extensible architecture, which would subsequently extend features and benefits beyond that of what any other technologies on the market were capable of delivering. The new technology was called HyperBac.
After serving out their individual non-compete agreements, which originated with the Insight transaction and were commuted to Quest after their acquisition of Imceda, the co-founders of SQL LiteSpeed released HyperBac.
HyperBac took a completely different approach to achieving SQL Server backup compression, using filter driver technology (using standard, supported Microsoft platform APIs as provided to many other file system driver development companies) to seamlessly compress SQL Server backup data streams as they are written from SQL Server to disk.
HyperBac was the first technology to introduce this new architecture, which was a marked departure from the numerous extended stored procedure based products available on the market to date. HyperBac allowed DBA’s to use native TSQL to perform backups with integrated high performance compression and encryption. Moreover, HyperBac’s architecture extended backup compression to other DBMS’s besides SQL Server, something not achieved by any other third party software vendor at the time. In addition the co-founders implemented several other innovations including the capability of performing backups directly to a ZIP/RAR compatible storage format, as opposed to a proprietary storage format creating an indefinite dependence on a third party software vendor to extract or restore companies data.
In Q3-2007, Microsoft announced that it was to release their own implementation of integrated backup compression in SQL Server 2008. This feature would be available in the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2008. Which takes us to today, Part II to follow…
More information on HyperBac for SQL Server is available at http://www.hyperbac.com/sqlserver/
More information on compression in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/default.mspx
