There are of course a lot of options out there and it
really is just a matter of understanding what you are
after.
Retrospect fits very well into this scenario as it is
inexpensive and designed to address laptops that are
intermittently networked.
If a laptop is connected to the network and notices it
has not been backed up for some time it will
automatically start a backup. Now you can imagine that
during a corporate wide mandatory conference call that
this could crush a Retrospect server, trying to back
up 1500 laptops simultaneously, so it throttles by
looking to see which machine has gone the longest
since the last time it was backed up and queues them
in that order. Now you can set priorities and such and
there are a lot of things you can do to customize but
it is relatively easy to use when you compare it to
any enterprise level backup software.
Also worth considering, since we're here right now,
Avamar. It has the de-duplication also so you *really*
only back up the data once, regardless of who it
belongs to or where it comes from.
--- Curtis Preston <cpreston AT GLASSHOUSE DOT COM> wrote:

> >I do agree with you that business information
> should not reside on any
> >PC, but a lot of users do not respect or understand
> that which is why
> >they create software like these. ;)
> 
> Which is why I disagree with the "it's up to the
> user to backup their
> PC" mentality.  Business data is ALWAYS on laptops. 
> Every survey shows
> that a significant portion of every company's IP is
> only on a desktop or
> laptop at any given time.  And (IMHO) adopting a
> "it's up to them to
> back it up" is not looking after the company's data.
>  It's a head in the
> sand approach.
> 
> Now, I agree that there are problems with using
> traditional backup
> software to backup desktops and especially laptops. 
> However, if you use
> a product designed to do it, I don't see the
> problem.
> 
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