Entries categorized under “Replication”

Today DCIG, LLC, is pleased to announce the availability of the DCIG 2011 Midrange Array Snapshot Software Buyer's Guide. This Buyer's Guide weights, scores and ranks the snapshot feature from 18 midrange array providers. In this report, special attention is given to how overall snapshot functionality and how well the snapshot feature on each midrange array integrates with specific applications, backup software and operating systems. (read more)

Backup redesign continues to be one of the hottest topics among end users for three years running with blog entries on that topic on DCIG's website consistently being among the most read. The problem is that many backup redesign offerings turn out to be just a rehash of the way backup has always been done which is inadequate when it comes to protecting growing virtual server environments. (read more)

Few things in the IT industry are truly both push button and fully featured. This adage is so engrained in the community that when a product line breaks that axiom it defies belief. Cofio's AIMstor is designed to do just that. (read more)

Over the last few months I have been talking to a number of end-users about their implementations of deduplication technology. In the process of doing so, they have provided me with valuable insight into how they are implementing deduplication when using disk-based targets that deduplicate data. Based upon that feedback it appears that most are adhering to the following five guidelines as they implement deduplication in their environments. (read more)

Does anyone find it somewhat ironic that backup software providers are spending more time and effort to make sure that the backup and recovery of both physical and virtual machines (VMs) take no time? This is being driven by enterprises who increasingly expect application backups and recoveries to occur without waiting. So to better meet these rising expectations, Symantec NetBackup™ 7.1 got cozier with Symantec's NetBackup RealTime software to provide the near real time backup and recovery functionality that enterprises increasingly want. (read more)

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog entry commenting that, based upon the research that DCIG had done to date, allocate-on-write (or redirect-on-write) had emerged as the "best" snapshot method that a midrange array could support. That opinion was formed after looking at snapshot functionality on over 20 midrange arrays and the pros and cons of each snapshot type. But yesterday I had a lengthy conversation with HP 3PAR's Director of Product Management, Sandeep Singh, that suggested the copy-on-write algorithm used by HP 3PAR' is as good or better than any other vendor's allocate-on-write snapshot method. (read more)

Nearly every small, medium or large organization is heading down the path of adopting disk-based data protection as a way to solve their legacy problems of backup to tape. But what many of these organizations have yet to recognize is that as they adopt disk to store these post-production copies of data, a new opportunity is presenting itself. They now have the option to manage and leverage post-production data in ways that were never possible when on tape but now lack the tools to do so. (read more)

The topic as to what storage management features organizations really need on a storage array continues to be a hotly debated. In the last decade, we have seen a multitude of features propagate on storage arrays including disk striping, thin provisioning, and storage tiering just to name a few. But deciding which of these features are "nice-to-haves" and which ones are really "needed" in a virtual operating environment (VOE) becomes very difficult to make without a close examination of one's environment. (read more)

In about a month or so DCIG is going to release its first Midrange Array Snapshot Software Buyer's Guide. It is in preparing for the release of this Buyer's Guide that DCIG had to evaluate a number of different implementations of snapshot software on midrange arrays. In so doing it became evident that DCIG had to make a determination as to what was the "Best" method for a midrange array to take snapshots of a volume in order for DCIG to properly score and rank snapshot software on different midrange arrays. (read more)

Moving from "D2D2T" to "D2D2D" is sometimes seen as an unattainable hurdle that enterprise organizations cannot overcome when tape is used for secondary roles such as archiving or disaster recovery (DR). But replacing the "T" in "D2D2T" with a "D" is now practical, possible and affordable. Doing so simply means enterprises need to demonstrate that disk offers the same or more functionality than tape when used in these capacities while costing the same or less. (read more)

This week DCIG sent out surveys to over 20 different midrange array storage vendors that inquired as to how they implemented replication software on their midrange array controllers. However some have asked why DCIG is doing a separate Buyer's Guide on midrange array replication software and not just including this feature as part of its upcoming broader 2011 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide that is due to be released next spring. (read more)

Sometimes it is difficult to put a price tag on "peace of mind" especially as it relates to having the confidence that application data can be recovered regardless of the scope of the disaster. But today more IT administrators are finding that elusive peace of mind. One such individual is Bill Ellis, the IT Infrastructure Manager for the Rug Doctor, Inc., whose confidence in his ability to recover data got a huge boost after testing and implementing the FalconStor Continuous Data Protector (CDP) solution. (read more)

The overwhelming success of the 2010 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide that DCIG released in May 2010 did not come without some caveats. One of the specific areas in the Buyer's Guide that merited closer attention was in the area of replication software. It is not that midrange array replication software was ignored in the Buyer's Guide. But it quickly became evident that in order to do this topic justice replication software required its own dedicated Buyer's Guide which is what DCIG will be releasing in the first half of 2011. (read more)

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are rapidly moving towards virtualizing their physical servers using VMware. But as they do so, they are also looking to minimize the cost, complexity and overhead that the backup of VMware servers introduces while increasing their ability to recover their newly virtualized applications. It is these concerns that InMage's new vContinuum software addresses by using a new technique to tap into VMware that provides near zero impact backups with near real time recoveries. (read more)

Any time that anyone in any size business starts to talk about how to improve IT efficiency while driving down costs the topic of server virtualization inevitably comes up. But enterprise companies need to take that conversation to another level and make sure they talk about selecting the right networked storage solution to support their virtualized servers as the wrong storage solution may negate whatever benefits that server virtualization provides. (read more)

Last week Josef Pfeiffer, a Symantec NetBackup product manager, posted a comment in response to a blog entry that I wrote regarding the CommVault® Simpana® 9 release. In his comment, he touched on one of the new debates that is occurring in the new battle for backup by posing the following question, "Why not upgrade to the latest release (NetBackup 7) and get more functionality rather than settle for less features and a big migration that may or may not work?" (read more)

What small and midsize business (SMB) - and when I say SMB, I mean an SMB with 20 servers or less - wouldn't kill to put those servers into a highly available (HA) and virtualized configuration? But to do so generally means deploying VMware, VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), some sort of networked storage solution and a bona fide expert to set it up and then manage this configuration. Now thanks to VM6 Software, the costs and complexity associated with doing that are no longer a prerequisite. (read more)

"Hot" or "cold" was a decision that every small and midsize enterprise (SME) faced when it came to determining how to best recover their applications in the event of a disaster. So, while nearly every SME may have wanted a "hot" recovery for their applications, looking at the price tag associated with delivering that option almost always gave them cold feet. However, new backup solutions such as the Revinetix Sentio™ now make it feasible for SMEs to significantly "warm up" their recoveries while keeping the price of recovery very cool. (read more)

The combination of cloud computing, cloud storage, inexpensive hardware, virtualization and heightened user demands for near real time backup and recovery are creating a crisis in traditional backup methodologies. It is a crisis in the sense that there is no way any emerging virtualized data center is going to find that how these backups work and are managed even slightly acceptable in the very near future. This suggests that in 2011 the transformation in backup that many have predicted will occur and it will go well beyond just deduplicating backup data stored to disk. (read more)

Talk all you want about the different features and functions found in backup software. If an IT administrator in a small and midsize enterprise (SME) thinks about backup at all it is in the context of "How easy is it to get it to work?" and "How much does it cost?" However, calculating any backup software's ease of configuration and price is tricky at best. (read more)

Enterprise storage array replication software is rarely accused of being "user-friendly" or "simple to manage". If anything, exactly the opposite is true with users grumbling about the engineering resources and professional services required to implement it and then the level of end-user knowledge and skill needed to manage it. (read more)

Simple. Easy. Automated. Those words are used so frequently to describe product features that users have become almost universally cynical about any product's ability to actually deliver on them. So it came as a pleasant surprise to discover the number of new features that EMC NetWorker plans to introduce in 2H10 to make the management of Data Domain systems the turnkey experience that enterprise backup shops expect. (read more)

One of the privileges I get in being contracted to do blogging is that I get to speak to customers to which others rarely get access. One set of customers that I frequently speak with are managed service providers (MSPs) and discuss with them what technologies that they are having success with in their data centers. So this is why I can say with a high degree of certainty that continuous data protection (CDP) is taking over within their data centers and is shaping up to have a high impact as enterprise organizations look to move their applications and application data into the cloud. (read more)

Last week I took a look at the first three factors to consider when choosing a replication software product. This week I wanted to finish my thoughts around that subject and discuss the final four factors that should be part of any evaluation of replication software. (read more)

Replication is becoming an ever more important component in the protection and recovery of applications. Anecdotal evidence already suggests that 50% or more of all SAN and NAS storage systems ship with some form of replication software while many more organizations use replication in its other forms (application, appliance or host-based). But regardless of what form of replication software that organizations buy, they are many times unaware of the subtle ways in which replication software products differentiate themselves. (read more)