About Restore

About four months ago, I published a blog post discussing the future of dedicated VMware backup solutions.  The post ignited a bigger discussion and included additional blog entries from W. Curtis Preston, me, Jon Toigo, Virtual Tacit, Veeam and Quest software.  I strongly encourage readers to review the differing perspectives in each post. I mention […]

I had dinner last night with a company that makes backup reporting software.  They have great technology, and the discussion made me think about the reporting market. As my readers know, I believe that data protection is critical.  Companies must ensure that backup and recovery operations are completed in a timely and effective manner or they […]

W. Curtis Preston recently posted a blog entry in response to my earlier post entitled Will dedicated VMware protection solutions go the way of CDP. Curtis clearly had strong opinions on the issue and his thorough write-up is appreciated.  I think that there is a disconnect here and wanted to clarify my thoughts. I agree […]

One of the biggest challenges with data protection is managing growth.  Some of the common factors that drive increasing capacity requirements include: Intrinsic growth – Growth inherent in the environment as users create new data. New applications – Companies implement new applications to meet changing business requirements.  These solutions could replace existing technologies or could be net new additions.  […]

I previously posted a survey highlighting the different methods of protecting VMware environments.  The responses suggested that host-based backup is the predominant approach.  The least popular choice was “Dedicated VMware backup application (Veeam, Vizioncore, etc..)”.  These solutions exclusively protect virtual environments and they remind me of continuous data protection (CDP) technologies from the past. Three […]

My last blog post contained a poll asking visitors about their primary VMware backup methodology.  The survey listed the common approaches to protecting virtualized environments including traditional agent-based,  VCB/VADP, dedicated VMware backup application, snapshots and doing nothing.  The results suggest that that the agent-based approach is most commonly used.  I anticipate that end users will […]

Server virtualization is a very powerful technology that can improve the economics of the datacenter.  However, it also creates new challenges for data protection.  VMware’s Vsphere API for Data Protection (VADP) improves the situation, but there still are multiple backup and recovery options.  Which do you use?  

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the benefits of Symantec’s Open Storage Technology (OST). The technology enables accelerated disk-to-disk backups (D2D) primarily over IP connections and additional value-added features. Last week, EMC responded with their announcement of BOOST for NetWorker. Insiders have told me that the BOOST architecture is essentially the same as OST […]

George Crump posted an article over on Network Computing discussing why storage is different for data protection. He makes a number of points regarding the benefits of using a storage appliance approach versus a software-only model, and for the most part, I agree with his analysis. However, there is an important point missing. The software-only […]

The Twittersphere was abuzz yesterday with EMC’s announcement of VPLEX. For those of you who missed it, VPLEX is a storage virtualization and caching solution that presents block storage over long distances. The initial release only supports data center and metro distances with a future of continental and global reach. The announcement struck me as yet […]