EMC has seen that organizations spend approximately $4 billion annually on backup and recovery software yet still struggle to fully realize the full value of this investment. To close this gap EMC has done a substantial amount of work over the last couple of years to integrate its Avamar, NetWorker and Data Domain solutions. The end result is new flexibility for its channel partners to configure these individual products in various combinations so they may be deployed and function as a single, logical solution in small and midsize enterprises (SMEs).
SMEs want their backup and recovery solution to be as manageable and reliable as large enterprise shops but to date have been somewhat left to fend for themselves. Granted, many rely upon trusted channel partners to help them choose the right mix of products and build out workable solutions. But both SMEs and their channel partners want higher levels of assurance that the backup and recovery solution they put in place will be easy to implement and manage and then scale up to meet their future needs.
To address this concern, EMC is taking its enterprise expertise in this area and applying it to the channel partners to enable them to sell holistic EMC backup and recovery solutions so they may increase their reach into the rapidly growing backup market. This is seen in its relatively new (about one year old) Velocity Backup and Recovery Specialty which provides additional incentives to its partners who achieve these backup focused certifications.
This Velocity Backup and Recovery specialty, of which many of EMC’s partners have already achieved, puts them through training based on EMC internal sales and technical training. This gives channel partners the skills that they need to succeed when assessing and deploying EMC backup and recovery solutions.
These new certifications now work to the benefit of SMEs as it gives them greater confidence that the solution that any backup certified EMC Velocity channel provider installs will be appropriately configured for their environment.
But now having now put this support and training structure for its backup and recovery solutions in place, EMC this past week took the next logical step and released a set of new Data Domain products that give its partners a new opportunity into which to sell these solutions into SMEs
These new Data Domain appliances, the DD160, DD620 and DD640, provide the feature functionality that large enterprises have enjoyed for years with a price point that rivals or is below that of EMC’s competition.
Further, these new systems now enable them to affordably displace tape by introducing deduplication into their backup environment. So by starting with these solutions, SMEs can solve their existing backup and recovery problems while simultaneously laying the foundation to put in place a solution that meets their needs for the long haul.
EMC backup and recovery solutions are already best-of-breed in many of the ways that DCIG measures and these new Data Domain systems further support those claims. Yet what tends to be as or even more important than these technical features is SMEs having the confidence that the solution they put in place solves the problems they are having while positioning them for future growth.
These new Data Domain systems give SMEs an affordable way to easily get started on solving the backup and recovery problems they are having today. The EMC Velocity backup specialty and the experience that EMC training and incentives provides to its channel partners gives SMEs the assurance that the solution they choose can be managed, scaled and supported going forward.