Double-Take
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Double-TakeActually yesterday was a double take in more ways than one. On Monday we sent out one of our monthly vendor newsletters. We send one a month, usually, as a way to let one particular vendor reach out to the community and let you know about their products. Obviously they pay us and it's one more marketing message for them and a source of revenue for us.
This month we sent out a nice message from Double-Take Software on their data replication product. It was our first business with Double-Take and I was a little excited. I used their product many years and jobs ago and liked it and thought this was a nice product as well as a great change of pace from the SQL developer tools. Not that those aren't good products, but I see them everyday, so a change is good.
However on Tuesday I got a message from Double-Take that very few people had downloaded their whitepaper. It was a number that really surprised me since I like their product and it does solve some interesting problems for high availability. Given that we've sent out a number of these mailings with no complaints, I was a little surprised.
I asked a few people and got a few opinions, but overall I'm a little stumped. So I thought I'd ask you what you think? Did you get the email? Ignore it as another advertisement? Not interested in Double-Take or maybe you think it's too expensive? Or did you balk at giving up your contact information?
If you just missed it, maybe you want to take a moment and read their data sheet or at least check out this flash demo of setting up disk replication. It's short and shows a simple mirror of a disk. And neither requires any registration.
I can't vouch for the current product and it's been a long time since I've even thought about it, but it's a cool technology. Protect all of the data on your disks, or just some of it, even a many to one scenario where you can copy multiple database files to a single server for tape backup.
So check them out or just leave some feedback. We're very interested in what you think as we try to build this community into one that of which you are proud to be a member
Steve Jones
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Actually, I am interested in Double-Take... but I just recoil when you can't get pricing and complete information without giving up contact info. Sometimes I do so, despite my better judgement, and then I know (and do) have to contend with unwanted phone calls and emails.
FWIW.
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I looked through most of their site but was annoyed that they didn't have a price range. I figured it was more than I can afford. I tried to get the white paper but didn't want to give my contact info for the priveledge of reading about their product. I am in need of a replication product and am probably going to buy the RedGate software I've seen on this site a few times.
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I did not get this newsletter. If this is something that I have the ability to opt out of, I probanly have done so. I will check them out though.
My blog: SQL Soldier[/url]
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Database Engineer at BlueMountain Capital Management[/url] -
If I don't have a need for the product in question at the time, then I almost certainly won't bother visiting the site or downloading a whitepaper etc. And if a company wants my phone number, then that really puts me off.
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I agree, no price on their website and I stop looking further. That is the first thing I need to discuss with my seniors.
5ilverFox
Consulting DBA / Developer
South Africa -
No price range, PLUS the need to sign up for the whitepaper equals no more interest.
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I'm a user of the product. It is pricy for what it does, and I've been bitten with the replication of online database files. If the connection is just dropped, you have about a 50/50 chance of a corrupt MDF file, so we've moved to another solution for our database DR requirments. Works very well for any other files.
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I don't ring Anhauser-Busch when I see their ad's either.
Advertisers shouldn't expect a 100% response rate. Not being upfront about price ranges also perturbs me.....it feels like the supplier want to know how big my employer is before deciding a price-point to pitch at me...sorry! not interested - especially when others are in the same marketplace with a more-friendly approach. -
In their article:
"Most Microsoft® SQL protection strategies involve a nightly full backup of the data, typically to tape. However, this method only protects yesterday''s work. Any data that has been entered into the database since the nightly backup is not protected and would have to be manually recreated if the production system failed. Since critical data is created and manipulated every second of every work day, you have to ask yourself: Can you afford to lose up to an entire day''s worth of data? "
This would surely put most professionals off the product, when you consider the various backup strategies that can be used e.g. to restore to a point in time.
Also why use 3rd party apps when solutions are already currently available and bundled for *free*.
John Rickatson, MCDBA
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No pricing means that they want to actively sell it to me and I don't want to be hassled like that as I don't have the time. I'm intelligent enough to make my own decisions based on the online literature, which should include the price.
Also, if you're going to ask for something of value (my contact information) then you should be giving me something of value in return and, by that, I don't mean a sales brochure. I mean, get serious guys, why do you want my mailing address?
I am constantly astounded that so many ISVs are still making this schoolboy error.
Double-Take - please remove all the barriers to successfully evaluating your software - ask for an email address at most and give as much information as possible (including the price). If it's good then people will buy it, if it's not then you may get some valuable feedback.
If, for some reason, you can't live with that full disclosure then maybe you need to evaluate if online marketing is right for your business model (sorry Steve)
Malcolm
DB Ghost - Build, compare and synchronize from source control = Database Change Management for SQL Server
www.dbghost.com -
I just delete obvious advertisements. If I have a need, I go out and investigate the relevant products, cutting quickly through the marketing hype.
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I did not receive your news letter either. However, I currently use their software and have no complaints with it.
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All,
Correct me if I wrong but doesn't the database mirroring function of SQL 2005 address this issue completely and is supported by Microsoft (no need to go to a 3rd party) ??
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I did get the AD and I did read it. I'm not afraid to call the vendor for pricing, if I want to know, and I don't balk at giving out my contact information to learn more about a product I might be interested in. This brings me to this point: After reading the inital AD, I was not "inspired" to look at the product any further; i.e. not interested
We use SQL Server failover clusters with fully fault tolerant storage arrays where we need high availability. We use SQL Server's built in replication where we need to and DTS/Integration services for warehousing data. I won't say there isn't room for improvement, especially in managing changes to replicated schemas, but the built in replication functionality is doing the job for us in a reasonaly fashion and I have bigger problems to content with and better areas to throw cash at than making small improvements in the area of replication.
I have "clicked through" other Ads you've sent out, but this one was just not compelling to me.
Kent...
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