Category: Commvault Systems

The realization is starting to set in. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) acknowledge that using VMware they can consolidate their server infrastructures, optimize their hardware resources and expedite the deployment of new applications. If is for this reason that CommVault is introducing a new reference architecture and VMware channel program to help SMBs accelerate and simplify the backup, management and recovery of data even as they deploy VMware in their environments.

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.

Desktop and laptop protection has been at most a blip on the radar screen of IT priorities. But with these devices increasingly being used to store more critical enterprise data, organizations are putting new emphasis on backing up data stored on these devices for reasons ranging from increasing productivity to corporate compliance and data security all the way to business intelligence.

When DCIG released its first ever Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer’s Guide in December 2010, it created some controversy when it became public that CommVault® Simpana® had achieved the highest score and was ranked #1. But just over a month later when another analyst firm Gartner positioned CommVault in its “Leaders” Quadrant for Enterprise Disk-Based Backup/Recovery, the silence was deafening.

A little over a week ago CommVault released the results of a survey of Simpana users on their IT Storage Spending Intentions for 2011. As part of that, CommVault also created a PowerPoint (which I had the opportunity to review) that included more details than its accompanying press release. It was while going over that PowerPoint that I gained some additional insight as to why many of these organizations are able to hold the line on hiring and spending even as they look to introduce needed new features and functionality into their infrastructure.

Back in October 2010, CommVault introduced Simpana 9 but did so in a two-fold manner. It first announced Simpana 9’s core data management features on October 5. Then, a few weeks later on October 19, CommVault introduced Simpana 9’s enhanced information governance capabilities. It was during this latter presentation that a number of statements were made by CommVault’s Senior Director of Information Access Management, Simon Taylor, about Simpana 9’s enhanced information governance capabilities that I asked him to elaborate upon.

2011 is shaping up to be a point of demarcation for how enterprise data is managed and protected. But in making that claim I cannot point to any specific analyst study or market survey to support it. Rather it is my sense that enterprise organizations can no longer ignore or put off their need to better manage, protect and recover their data. So when I see new releases like today’s CommVault® Simpana® 9 and the features that it has packed into it, I see it ushering in the new era of enterprise data management, protection and recovery that these enterprise organizations crave.

Even as interest by small and midsize enterprises (SME) in cloud computing and cloud storage continues to swell, the last thing any SME wants is a solution that introduces more complexity into its environment. Rather solutions are needed that automatically plug into the cloud and take advantage of the features that it offers.

Not that many years ago the debate around how to best deduplicate data centered on inline versus post processing deduplication as data was archived or backed up. While that debate still simmers, a new one is brewing that was spurred in part by the recent announcement that Dell plans to acquire Ocarina Networks.

Substantial technical differences exist between how the interfaces of storage clouds are presented, managed and secured. But from a business point of view, a cloud is a cloud is a cloud and the sooner that the technical challenges associated with managing these different storage clouds from a single platform are overcome, the sooner that businesses can ramp up their cloud storage adoption.