May 13, 2005 at 12:09 am
Hi all I am doing some comparisons between LiteSpeed and Red-Gate trying to decide which to buy. So far I have found LiteSpeed to be quicker at backing up and they both compress our 300+ GB Database to around 50GB and the restores are around the same. The problem is there is a significant price difference and I can't see why. Has anyone had any experience with either? Got any comments?
Cheers Brian
May 13, 2005 at 1:57 am
From a purely personal point of view I prefer Litespeed over RedGate.
We use clustered 64-bit Itanuim2's in our main production system, which means we couldn't use Red-Gate because it doesn't have 64-bit support (LiteSpeed 2005 does).
Can I also say that whilst I'm generally impressed with both products we don't use them in production (we are trialing both in QA and Devlelopment) as I don't feel they're mature enough to trust my future employment to (maybe in another year I'll be happier).
May 13, 2005 at 7:10 am
Agreed to Mike. We use LiteSpeed 2005 in DEV/QA/Test systems and the backup performance and compression are excellent. IMCEDA, now is QUEST software claims Microsoft and other large customers are using their LiteSpeed products.
May 13, 2005 at 3:29 pm
Microsoft is not only a customer they have Standardized on LiteSpeed. Other companies such as Countrywide have also standardized on LiteSpeed and are using it in production on 100+ servers. The comment about LiteSpeed not being mature enough a product to trust in production is puzzling as I cannot imagine Microsoft using an immature product on their production SQL Servers. Feel free to also check out http://www.imceda.com/news_14_feb_2005.htm for a story about how Countrywide financial has standardized on LiteSpeed. Customers such as Merrill Lynch have also made substantial investments in LiteSpeed and are using the product on critical production systems. I cannot vouch for Red-Gates product but LiteSpeed has over 4000 customers including several fortune 100 companies using the product in production. As far as scalability, I cannot tell you the customer but we have been tested on a 10 TB database, so saying that LiteSpeed is an immature product is a matter of opinion and not fact. All I can say is I recommend that you try it out and see the benefits for yourself.
The reason why LiteSpeed is fastest is because of the advanced threading and system resource utilization of the LiteSpeed compression engine. LiteSpeed virtually stripes the files accross multiple backup devices in order to significantly boost performance. Every major publication that has reviewed the product has come away with the same results. LiteSpeed is the fastest and has been proved in production time and time again. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or would like any references (jhall@imceda.com).
May 13, 2005 at 3:29 pm
LiteSpeed does have functionality that is not included in Red Gate SQL Backup. More compression levels, multiple encryption methods, backup to tape (though I haven't tested this), and maybe some others. LiteSpeed is the frontrunner in SQL compressed backups, and that in itself commands a higher price. You may also want to read the interview that Steve Jones did recently with Simon Johnson of Red Gate. Provides some insight to their pricing structure. Finally, take a look at Idera SQL Safe as well, for a "middle of the road" product. It provides options more in line with LiteSpeed, but is still priced considerably lower, though more than Red Gate. SQL Safe also does NOT currently have backup to tape (got that directly from Idera technical support), even though the SQL Mag article stated that it does.
Steve
Sorry, I meant to include a link to Steve's article...
http://qa.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/sjones/simonsays.asp
May 13, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Jason, In all fairness, you should state that Red Gate's SQL Backup was recently purchased from Yohz Software, and VERY recently went on the market. Of course they don't have the customer base that you do.
>>I cannot vouch for Red-Gates product but LiteSpeed has over 4000 customers including several fortune 100 companies using the product in production. <<
Also, SQL Safe was not mentioned until I brought it up in my previous post, but they also offer threading to multiple files, which does significantly boost performance (in both products). My testing involved placing up to 4 files on a single disk. I would imagine that performance would increase even more across multiple physical disks.
I don't want to "dis" LiteSpeed. I like the product a lot. I just thought that without mentioning how new SQL Backup was, the customer base statement was a little unfair. Also, I have downloaded SQL Backup but haven't started testing with it at this time. I have done quite a bit of testing with both LiteSpeed and SQL Safe.
Steve
May 13, 2005 at 7:26 pm
My post was not a knock on Red Gate's product at all. I was commenting on the statement that LiteSpeed is not a mature enough product to put into a production environment. I had seen the product back when it was Mini SQL Backup from Yohz and it looked like a very good product. My post was simply to assure all users that LiteSpeed is indeed a product that is ready and mature enough for a production environment. You don't have to take my word for it... check the website for independent case studies.
May 14, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I would agree completely that LiteSpeed is a mature enough product for a production environment. In fact, my testing is geared towards use in a production environment. I would not be afraid at all to use LiteSpeed.
Jason, I apologize for taking a defensive (or offensive) stand in my post. I suppose I had my head tilted wrong and got the wrong "slant" on your post.
Steve
May 15, 2005 at 3:25 pm
Guys, just to clear things up a little, it was my personal opinion, and was about litespeed 2005.
To my mind there arent enough customers using it with 64-bit servers (that i know about), but at least it is supported unlike most other software. All I did was give an opinion, I dont work for either company and was trying to answer based on what i'd experienced (1st hand, 3rd hand, whatever).
Personally I wish both companies well, but it's still going to be another 6 months before I think about taking any risk (real or perceived) with my companies data.
Can I just add that I'm also desperate to move to sql 2005 when it eventually comes out (we can benefit massivly from some of it's features) but that doesnt mean we're going to migrate straight away, again we're going to be a little more cautious and let other people find the remaining bugs first.
May 19, 2005 at 9:30 am
Hi
Have any ofe You guys used LiteSpeed with TSM ?
Best Regards,
Claus Munch
Denmark
May 19, 2005 at 10:31 am
I use Red-Gate's product in production. It works great. I tested both Litespeed and Red-Gate and found little performance difference. In some cases Red-Gate's product was faster. Given that I could not justify the (considerable) extra cost for Litespeed, both initially and ongoing. Its true that Litespeed is fancier and has a richer GUI. In my case I don't use the GUI for backups or restores so its all the same to me. I got a 5 server license for less than 1 dual processor Litespeed licence. (never mind that 2 of my servers are quad processors.) I don't think much of an vendor's pricing scheme that tries to get more money if you have a bigger (or more) processor; but that's a whole different rant. Look at the various reviews (on this site) and test the products for yourself.
Francis
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