Entries categorized under “Data Protection”

A "feature rich" product can mean a number of things. It can mean that it is flexible. It can suggest that is offers a good value for the money. It can imply that it can function as a one stop shop for managing your environment. It can also mean that it is too complex and takes too long to learn. In this second part of my interview series with PHD Virtual's CMO Steve Kahan, he discusses how PHD Virtual introduces new feature functionality into its product without its backup software becoming too complex for users to effectively utilize. (read more)

DCIG has been producing Buyer's Guides since 2010 and every time it produces one, new information comes to its attention. This information sometimes forces DCIG to adjust how it prepares a particular Buyer's Guide to include how it scores and ranks products in it to properly and accurately reflect our findings. In preparing the 165-page DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide, DCIG encountered such an anomaly in that it felt compelled for the first time to introduce and assign an "Enterprise" ranking to one of the backup appliances covered in the Buyer's Guide. (read more)

The introduction of disk as a backup target has finally resulted in what many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have wanted for years: a good copy of their backup data. Yet having a good copy of backup data on disk does not automatically mean they have put in place a good backup process. The good news is that creating a good backup process is as simple as "3 - 2 - 1." (read more)

Today DCIG will be doing a live webinar today (Thursday, November 29) that analyzes key differences among leading virtual machine backup solutions. The webinar starts at 11 am ET and you may register for the webinar at this link. If you miss the webinar, I will update this blog entry and provide the link as to where you may watch it once the recorded webinar is available for viewing. (read more)

Virtualization has brought many changes to enterprises the last few years ranging from faster application deployments to more efficient and effective use of the data center infrastructure. But maybe no area is more ready for change than in how virtualization challenges the status quo of how organizations currently backup and manage their increasingly virtualized infrastructure. In this first part of an interview series with PHD Virtual's CMO Steve Kahan, he discusses how new tools are needed to backup and manage the new virtual infrastructure of today. (read more)

Bringing storage systems initially designed to meet Big Data demands into enterprise data centers is proving to be a bigger challenge than either storage providers or enterprises anticipated. While enterprises certainly want a storage system with a cost-effective, easy-to-manage, scalable architecture, other features such as data protection, data security and virtualization integration also come into play. EMC Isilon's latest OneFS 7.0 operating system takes these specific needs into account freeing enterprises to tackle their Big Data concerns. (read more)

Mixed physical and virtual IT infrastructures and the protection of them are now a reality in enterprises of almost every size. But with these environments now in place, enterprises are turning their attention to using either a single product or interface to manage data protection across all of it. Quest's Software's release of NetVault Backup 9.0 gives them two paths to follow to arrive at this common centralized data protection management destination. (read more)

One aspect of data protection that enterprises often overlook is the types of servers and the number of them that they do NOT backup. Enterprises are pretty conscientious about protecting business and mission critical applications (physical or virtual.) It is the rest of their production physical and virtual machines (VMs) which often go unprotected due to the reluctance of organizations to invest in software to back them up. Idera Server Backup 5.0's new licensing model that drives per VM backup costs down to as low as $15 per VM removes these concerns and frees organizations to cost-effectively extend data protection to all of their production servers. (read more)

More data, shrinking backup windows and less time for recovery translate into a troubled future for traditional backup. This is why snapshots and replication are being hailed as a way to address these problems for a new future for data protection and recovery. However there is just one small problem with that vision: they add complexity and fail to offer all of backup software's features. The CommVault IntelliSnap Recovery Manager removes the roadblocks to taking full advantage of hardware snapshots by making the management and recovery of them consistent, practical to implement and easy to manage even as it retains backup software's key advantages. (read more)

To say "All virtual machine (VM) backup software is the same" is like saying "All birds can fly." While VM backup software solutions can and certainly do protect VMs, the techniques they use, what hypervisors they support and how they manage backup and recovery vary greatly between them. Understanding and quantifying these differences becomes especially important for those organizations looking to select the best solution to protect the growing number of VMs in their environment. (read more)

Many businesses are allocating a portion of their IT budgets to Big Data analytics projects. At the same time, a certain amount of technology spending is necessarily tied to risk management and compliance because a failure to meet minimum eDiscovery and legal hold requirements can have disastrous consequences. While these twin priorities often compete for funding, it is now possible for an enterprise to adopt a single core technology to address both their data analytics and compliance requirements and double their bang for the buck in the process. (read more)

Business continuity and disaster recovery have been "top" priorities for many enterprises going back at least a decade. However it is difficult to keep these strategic objectives at the "top" of the priority list when they encounter operational headwinds brought on by age-old tactical backup concerns such as increasing backup capacities and performance. Tackling these complementary but often conflicting priorities requires the implementation of a solution that delivers on both of these objectives. (read more)

To date, backup has been largely driven by a single business objective: creating a recoverable copy of data. But as business service level agreements (SLAs) continue to demand ever shorter application recovery times, creating backups - even if they are good backups - without having any visibility into expected recovery times is simply not enough. Now, the requirements of physical and virtual application recovery must align with these heightened business expectations. (read more)

KISS - "Keep IT Simple, Stupid" - is the objective of almost every small and midsized business (SMB) on the planet. However SMBs and storage providers sometimes define "simple" in very different ways, especially when it comes to performing tasks like data protection and business continuity. Taking this challenge head-on, VMware has tightly integrated EMC Avamar technology in its new vSphere Data Protection offering to provide SMBs with the level of simplicity that they expect and need. (read more)

Many SMBs are interested in moving beyond virtualization's upfront consolidation and cost reduction benefits to also achieving improved availability, data protection and business continuity for their applications. But to date the costs and technical complexities of pursuing those goals have held many of them back. VMware's recent vSphere 5.1 Data Protection release changes that as VMware leverages EMC's deep backup and recovery expertise to address these specific SMB needs. (read more)

It is no longer a matter a question of "if" most organizations are going to implement a private cloud; it is more a matter of "when" and "how to best proceed." This is where it can get a little hazy as it is not always clear what path an organization should follow to ensure it ends up with a private cloud that meets its needs. While this path is not the same for every organization, there are three principles that organizations may follow to have a high degree of assurance that they will end up with a private cloud that meets their needs. (read more)

Large organizations are putting new demands on their IT departments to deliver IT infrastructures that are more agile, make data protection a snap and facilitate the adoption of private and/or public clouds. However many small and midsized businesses (SMBs) still feel like they are on the outside looking in when it comes to achieving these objectives. Changing that requires they identify a technology that enables them to accomplish these objectives that neither breaks their budgets nor overwhelms their IT staff. (read more)

Despite some claims to the contrary, the primary use case for tape remains in the context of backup. It is HOW tape is being used in the backup process that is changing. As it does, it is putting tape in a better position to solve certain data protection concerns that disk and even new flash media drives can never solve. In part IV of my interview series with Spectra Logic's CEO Nathan Thompson, he discusses why tape will remain an integral part of backup processes for a long time to come. (read more)

In the week that has passed since VMworld 2012 ended, I have had some time to contemplate the best technologies announced or on display at the show. In reflecting on what I saw at the show and while constructing my short list of what I considered the "Top Two," it struck me that the premise upon which many of these technologies are based has changed. They are less about filling the gaps that VMware vSphere leaves. Instead they focus on capitalizing on the vSphere platform that VMware has built. (read more)

As the move to consolidate and virtualize IT infrastructures continues, the anticipated benefit that "less" promises is not always the case. In fact, as DCIG research continues to uncover, the need for solutions like dedicated appliances to offload growing complexities is increasing. That is true, especially with dedicated appliances for critical data protection processes, and in particular, to help with backup. Backup appliances that combine server and storage hardware with backup software continue to appeal to organizations as cost-efficient, "set and forget" solutions. (read more)

DCIG is pleased to announce the availability of its inaugural 160+ page DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide that weights, scores and ranks over 80 features on more than 60 different backup appliances from 13 different storage providers. This Buyer's Guide addresses the growing demand that organizations of all sizes have for purpose built backup appliances that are specifically designed and tuned to protect consolidated physical and virtual IT infrastructures. (read more)

No one disputes that enterprise backup has changed significantly in the last decade with the introduction of disk as a backup target and deduplication being the largest contributors to that shift. But in the last few years, array-based snapshots are emerging as the next big wave in how enterprise data protection will be done. As that shift occurs, it becomes more critical than ever for organizations to understand the right role for disk-based backup solutions to play in today's new world of array-based snapshots. (read more)

In today's information age our focus always tends to be on the here and now and how quickly we can access information that was made sometimes just seconds ago. But in terms of the total amount of data in the digital universe, that is just the tip of the iceberg with possibly as much as 90% of today's data existing as archival data. Ensuring the integrity of that data and making sure it is stored cost effectively for decades is the responsibility of today's new generation of tape libraries. In part 3 of my interview series with Spectra Logic's CEO Nathan Thompson, we discuss how tape libraries have continued to mature to meet today's new business demands for retaining archival data for even longer periods of time. (read more)

The mainframe and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) are linked in ways in which most of the open systems world has never really experienced. While both mainframe and open systems have and continue to use VTLs as part of their respective backup and recovery strategies, mainframes may also store less frequently accessed data on VTLs using its hierarchical storage management (HSM) software. EMC's introduction of synchronous replication on its new DLm8000 means mainframe environments may continue and even expand their use of HSM while still achieving the same levels of availability to which they are accustomed on their Tier 1 storage systems. (read more)

Backup appliances are HOT right now with organizations of all sizes loving the flexibility and ease with which these appliances enable them to get backup up and running in their environment. But as DCIG's research into backup appliances uncovers, they are not all created equal with features like deduplication, SSD support and application integration emerging as key differentiators. It is these features and more that Eversync bundles in its new, recently announced line of data protection appliances. (read more)