Oracle, ESX data recovery offered back to creators

The company, which has operations in Brisbane, last week launched a recovery solution for Oracle databases.

It already claims to have a successful recovery business for Microsoft SQL Server databases.

General manager for Asia Pacific, Adrian Briscoe, told iTnews that the decision to pursue Oracle database recoveries more formally is in part driven by Oracle’s increased ‘push for database dominance’.

“We’re perfecting tools to not only recover the database but also the tables within it,” said Briscoe.

Briscoe said Kroll Ontrack is pursuing a relationship with Oracle both in the U.S. and Australia.

“We’ve had contact with them locally from an internal standpoint,” said Briscoe.

“We’re not at the point where they’re recommending our services, but we certainly have a working relationship as they see a need for these types of services to be provided.”

Briscoe said the company will conduct training sessions with Oracle partners in Australia in the coming months.

“We’re approaching partners that deal with Oracle products and making them aware that the services exist and offering them training [on how to sell us],” explained Briscoe.

“If customers have a problem, they may turn to the actual software house [like Oracle or their partners]. Our job is to educate them that we can recover from that scenario.”

Kroll Ontrack is hoping to achieve referred business either directly or through the Oracle channel.

He said that the reasons for database corruption are not typically from the database software itself, or from virus infections.

“We don’t see weaknesses in the actual product that’s hosting the data,” Briscoe told iTnews.

“The flaws are usually in the hardware because it’s a mechanical device and can fail at any point. Also, as IT departments get more strained in terms of resources, a database failure could be caused by user error in maintenance.

“About 70 to 80 percent of jobs are from hardware failures and 20 per cent is user error. The virus days are gone now,” said Briscoe.

The company also claims to be pioneering tools and methods for recovering data from VMware ESX-based virtual machines.

“It’s getting to the point where there’s three recoveries in a single recovery,” said Briscoe.

“You have to find the VM files, go inside the VM and find what’s inside, whether an Oracle or SQL database or Exchange, and then extract that information out and make sure the information volume is sound. It can be very technically challenging.”

Briscoe also said Kroll Ontrack has managed to streamline recoveries from Mac computers -– often said to be difficult due to the moulded construction of the casings.

“We recently employed an Apple Mac engineer, so it’s easy now because he knows where all the screws are hidden,” joked Briscoe.

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