Paragon Software Selected For ISS Disaster Recovery Solutions

Paragon Software Group reached a milestone in the company's brief history as it soared into the heavens on the final flight of America's Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Selected by NASA's Prime Bioastronautics contractor, Wyle, Paragon's backup and disaster recovery software, Hard Disk Manager (HDM) 11 Professional now orbits the Earth on the International Space Station. HDM 11 serves as the primary backup and recovery software for the latest generation Ultrasound system also launched on Atlantis.

The International Space Station's primary goal is to provide a platform for scientific research. Human subject research is managed by Wyle as part of the Bioastronautics Contract.

Certification of the next generation ultrasound required being able to successfully restore the new ultrasound system to its launch configuration.

Lockheed Martin, one of the subcontractors operating with Wyle, the prime contractor on the Bioastronautics Contract, needed a recovery solution that could meet its stringent specifications. As is often the case with space-related operations, a customized software solution was needed.

"At Paragon, we provide our clients with superior customer service regardless of where they are, now that extends to outer space," said Tom Fedro, president of Paragon Software Group.

"It was important to Wyle and Lockheed Martin to ensure that the astronauts operating on the Space Station could quickly and easily restore their systems back to an operable state - with the customized version of Hard Disk Manager, they can recover in a matter of minutes without any additional tools."

Paragon developed a custom-restore script that automated the system restore process via a USB-bootable flash drive with the click of a button.

Bioastronautics personnel evaluated several back-up and recovery tools. Of the tools available Paragon's HDM 11 came closest to meeting the project's needs. The Paragon team stepped in to close the gap, providing a customized solution which minimized user interaction.

HDM 11 Server provides a complete data backup and disaster recovery solution. A virtual add-on component is available for virtual environments.

Both versions offer the ability to perform bare-metal restores, file-level recovery, includes advanced data wiping algorithms, and automatic partition alignment. Additionally, HDM 11 Server enables data back up or migration of an active server with locked volumes, files or folders.

Paragon Software is also used by European Aerospace Contractors such as EADS, Thales, Astrium, etc.