Litespeed for SQL Server
-
Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/dcorey/litespeedforsqlserver.asp
All the best,
DaleAuthor: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
-
Great article and a great product. I have been using this product for a couple of years now and it has saved us plenty!!
-
The great thing about this product is it does exactly what it says. It is fast, reliable and we have been using it for years. Object Recovery is one of the coolest features I have seen for years in any product, Microsoft never should have taken it out of the the product, but I am glad Imceda put it back in. This is a product that should come standard with every SQL Server Installation.
-
Yeah, Imceda has a great suite of tools. I've been recommending them for many of my client engagements and they're usually sold after a small demo backup of existing database.
Setup is a breeze and the UI is very intuitive and well designed.
I especially like the integrated backup encryption..very handy; clients love it. Many of the smaller to mid-size clients never even thought of encrypting the backup files before (most just use the backup tools shipped with SQL Server) so I've gotten a lot of positive response from CTOs and management when I bring up this aspect. Lots of options for performance optimization as well; it really looks like the developers put in a lot of time with regards to allowing the end user to optimize the application for different machines/environments, which is great as not everyone has a Quad-Opteron machine churning out backups
Also lots of options in terms of how the backups are triggered, which is good as different clients usually have varying requirements and environments.
My support experience has been good. They have offices in Australia and the US so even during off hours (after 5 PM) here (NJ, USA), support turnaround has been < 30 minutes.
So all-in-all, a very solid suite of products. Highly recommended
-
Thanks for all the great comments! I can honestly say that this product has been one of my favorites to review. Imceda has done an excellent job finding a niche that could not be satisfied with the SQL Server 2000 product. It's a great product that is so easy to use and packed full of features. It's a great product for the average "Joe" company that needs backups that scream and encryption if necessary. There are some other products out there that reach more for the larger Enterprises but this one is tops where it's at in the market.
Enjoy!
All the best,
DaleAuthor: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
-
Although I have never used Litespeed 2005 (I used the previous version) and, by all accounts, it is an excellent product I would have respected your review more if you had done some more serious analysis of the speed claims.
You say that you backed up Northwind in 3.78 seconds? Why is that impressive? Maybe I am missing something here but vanilla Northwind on my laptop backs up in about 2 seconds using the standard SQL Server tools. Is there more data in your Northwind database?
You would have done yourself and Imceda more justice by giving a realistic third party assessment of their main claims for the product i.e. Speed, compression and encryption. I just didn't get the impression that you had actually tested the product in a real world situation - most of the facts and figures are from Imceda themselves.
Also, in the bullet points it is stated that Litespeed can back up 2TB in under an hour, yet the figures below, also from Imceda, state that customers have found it takes 2 hours to back up 1TB. What are the reasons for this inconsistency? hardware? configuration? typo? - we are simply left guessing.
Don't get me wrong, I like LiteSpeed and I believe it does it's job very well indeed it's just that I found your review a little too gushing and short on hard analysis which makes me inclined to question your conclusions.
Malcolm
DB Ghost - Build, compare and synchronize from source control = Database Change Management for SQL Server
www.dbghost.com -
"in the bullet points it is stated that Litespeed can back up 2TB in under an hour, yet the figures below, also from Imceda, state that customers have found it takes 2 hours to back up 1TB."
- The 2TB statistic is based on the latest version.
"You would have done yourself and Imceda more justice by giving a realistic third party assessment of their main claims for the product i.e. Speed, compression and encryption. I just didn't get the impression that you had actually tested the product in a real world situation - most of the facts and figures are from Imceda themselves."
- I can assure you that VERY little of the content in my review came from Imceda (please feel free to check their product information or contact them yourself) and ALL screen shots are original from my test server (just look, you'll see). Unfortunately, my test server is somewhat of a dog (Pentium III, 551MHz, 256MB RAM, IDE hard drive). Hence, the 3.7 seconds was quite wonderful for Northwind. Regretfully, I didn't do this particular review at work. I have a mini lab at home. I would like to have tested it on our Customer DB at work. Unfortunately, I'm still fairly new there so I didn't want to push any buttons when it came to testing any products on their SQL servers.
As for this review, I trust my fellow sqlservercentral.com colleagues'/columnists' judgement on this product. As you will find, I have been a valued member of the sqlservercentral.com community for quite some time. I made some great friends along the way and have written many articles for sqlservercentral.com. You would do well to make friends here as well. Anyway, I used a lot of their testing and reviews for reference. I, like you, rely on my fellow experts. Wesley Brown did a helluva job testing Litespeed and other products in his 12/2004 article. I also used numerous other references besides sqlservercentral.com and opinions to formulate my review. As for resources concerning Litespeed on sqlservercentral.com, go here and type "litespeed" in the search:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/search/turbo.asp
I invite you try this product again. I may not have tested it on a monster database (mainly 'cause my home server is a bow wow), but I can assure you, you will be HIGHLY impressed the minute you load this software and try it out. I stand by all the remarks/comments I made in my review because I have the facts to prove the comments. I based my analysis on my personal experience with this product (i.e, the tests I personally performed on speed, compression and encryption - see original screen shots) as well as MANY other reliable resources that I researched for the review. You really should read the sqlservercentral.com article by Wesley Brown called "Four of a Kind - Backup Software Shootout", http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/wbrown/fourofakindbackupsoftwareshootout.asp. That should help resolve your concerns.
By the way, I understand that you work for dbGhost with Mark Baekdal. Boy, do I know somebody that wants to compete with you! Sorry, I can not disclose...
Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. 
All the best,
DaleAuthor: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
-
Good review.
Has anyone taken the lunch challenge of Idera? http://www.idera.com/freelunch/?s=NL_SCT
I think that is a pretty good idea. Idera either thinks their product is superior to Imceda's or they figure the user info. is worth a free lunch. either way I like the campaign.
it's refreshing when a vendor presents a real relative value proposition (vs competitors) to customers vs just engaging in hyperbole (best, fastest).
Brian Lockwood
President
ApexSQL - SQL Developer Essentials -
"it's refreshing when a vendor presents a real relative value proposition (vs competitors) to customers vs just engaging in hyperbole (best, fastest)"
Too bad it's not as easy as knocking down ten pins in a bowling lane on your first frame.
All the best,
DaleAuthor: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
-
Friends,
I am sure SQL Litespeed has some nice features. Because of the following features I DON'T receommend this product any more.
1. Ever since Quest acquired this company, the support is really bad. I bought the 2005 version, reported a problem. It's been 2 months and no reply from their 'developers'. This is the problem. I cannot enable logginng acticity.
" Message: Invalid authorization specification. " this is the error message.
2. They have this nasy activation feature. If you want to upgrade or change servers, you are at their mercy. Customers have long rejected, this idea of treating them like thieves. I didn;t realize this until I paid for the product. I was lucky that I bought only one license. It's your choice to have a proudct like this in proudction with your valued data.
Like someone mentoned, I don;t think the author really tested this product. Please take a look at the other products in the market before confirming your purchase decision.
-
Hi all, Sounds like lots of experience out there. I'm looking for some suggestions for a standard install to our production/DR/Dev/Test and UA servers. Any gotchas with installing/supporting the Activity Logging (other than that stated above).
It sounds like the Activity Logging must reside locally on each server where LiteSpeed is installed. Is there any performance hit or major capacity planning to be considered before the installation? We have a mission-critical oltp.
Your help is greatly appreciated! TIA!
-
Debbi,
It has been a year since I did this review. I would highly advice you to try Imceda's Live Chat Mode or email them directly. I would hate to steer you in the wrong direction. I was highly impressed by their response to Chat last year.
Good luck!
All the best,
DaleAuthor: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
-
Hi Dale,
Sorry - I missed your reply to my original post and I was just trawling through my old posts...
I think you misunderstood my point. I wasn't saying that you were an Imceda stooge, just that some of the figures seemed to be gleaned from their website at the time.
My main concern was that I was hoping to see some hard core testing against big databases as, I imagine, a large number of people buy Litespeed for, um, it's speed
Therefore I was disappointed to see a test against Northwind, even if it was on your home lab PC.I do work with Mark, yes, and I welcome competition
Malcolm
DB Ghost - Build, compare and synchronize from source control = Database Change Management for SQL Server
www.dbghost.com -
post reply - take 2 ....
what about this benchmark?
http://weblog.infoworld.com/dbunderground/archives/2006/10/just_when_you_t.html - it's not on Northwind
Brian Lockwood
President
ApexSQL - SQL Developer Essentials
Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply