Unless SnapManager's got much more complicated in the last 2 years, the training really shouldn't be that long. Or costly.

The front end was god-awful, but the technology's ace.

YMMV, but 700GB used to back up in well under a minute. As Jeffrey says - it's quick because it's not really backing up as such, just writing meta data.

The log backups are more or less just native SQL log backups, although IIRC they're not compatible with native SQL backups.

Having said all that, I'll echo Jeffrey - SnapManager's great for on-site backup/restore. Off-site DR, not so much.

SAN replication/mirroring and/or SQL's own HA solutions are much more suitable.