In the last few years, the need for backup software to support VMware has become almost a must-have for any backup solution to remain relevant in the years to come. The need for organizations to back up both physical and virtual machines means that addressing data protection has become increasingly complex. This is why the new Revinetix RevOS 4.0 provides an all-in-one solution to bridge the physical-virtual gap that other backup software solutions may not accomplish without increasing complexity.
VMware’s adoption rate has accelerated in enterprises of all sizes but growth is perhaps most pronounced in small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Recent analyst surveys show that from 2009 to 2012, the adoption rate of VMware among SMBs will jump from about 28% in 2009 to more than 75% in 2012.
One side effect of VMware’s rapid uptick in adoption by SMBs is their new need for backup software that is specifically designed to protect their newly virtualized environments. This demand has resulted in a number of first generation backup software products specifically designed to protect VMware.
Yet the downfall of many of these products is that they do not fully take into account existing physical environments. While having separate dedicated backup solutions for virtual and physical servers may be acceptable in large enterprise organizations, it is not manageable or cost effective for small to medium sized businesses. The ideal data protection solution for SMB is a single, easy-to-use, integrated backup solution that protects both physical and virtual servers and enables them to bridge this physical/virtual gap.
The addition of integrated VMware vSphere support into the latest Revinetix RevOS 4.0 gives SMBs this singular solution. While Revinetix could always backup individual virtual machines (VMs), this integration gives Revinetix the flexibility to more efficiently protect VMs at a much more granular and scalable level. To do this, Revinetix RevOS 4.0 offers three key new features:
- Minimizes or eliminates the need to put agents on every VM. By integrating with the VMware vStorage API for Data Protection (VADP), SMBs no longer need to put a Revinetix agent on every VM. Instead, they may use this new feature in Revinetix to track changes on each VM to do fast full or incremental VM backups by doing snapshots of the individual VMs.
- Automatically detects new VMs for backups. As new VMs are created, Revinetix now regularly queries either the VMware ESX/ESXi host or VMware vCenter for VMs in the environment. If a new VM is identified and is it not configured for backup, Revinetix will back it up using a default profile.
- Deduplicates data at a more granular level. In RevOS 4.0, Revinetix expands its deduplication technology beyond the file level by deduplicating data at a block level. This feature is essential to driving up storage efficiency as VMware backups typically have above average levels of redundant data when compared to physical environments. This should result in Revinetix Sentio disk backup appliances being able to achieve up to 20:1 or greater deduplication ratios and store up to five times as much data as when using Revinetix’ file-based deduplication technology.
Current Revinetix customers will also be encouraged to learn that they can access all of this functionality as well. Existing Revinetix Sentio appliances may get this functionality with as little as an OS upgrade, though those models that are over a year old will require the introduction of solid state disks (SSDs) and more memory which are available as an upgrade from Revinetix.
However, as Revinetix makes these features available to protect VMs, it retains its historical strength of providing SMBs the simple all-in-one appliance-based disk backup solution that they seek. As Revinetix has always done, it continues to offer SMBs a single, turnkey solution that provides them with the backup software, software licenses and hardware that they need with the support to back it up.
The new ability of Revinetix to expedite VM backups, discover and backup new VMs and deduplicate data at a more granular level meet the new virtual backup demands of today’s SMBs in the same easy-to-use solution that also backs up their physical servers.
The adoption rate of VMware among SMBs is continuing to accelerate but that does not mean they are abandoning all of their physical applications any time soon. By continuing to deliver the all-in-one appliances that SMBs have come to know it for, Revinetix effectively bridges the physical/virtual gap that almost every SMB still needs to close. In so doing, the new Revinetix RevOS 4.0 provides a single affordable solution to which any SMB may confidently turn to backup both their emerging virtual environment and their existing physical one using a single appliance.