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Perspectives on Quest Acquiring BakBone

Jay Livens — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:59:45 +0000

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 all of the above to provide context to Quest’s acquisition of BakBone. For those who are unfamiliar, BakBone is a backup software provider that plays in the low end of the market. They position their product, NetVault, as a full service backup application that includes traditional backup, CDP and deduplication. They have had limited success in the US and Japan appears to be their strongest market. Their technology was spun-off from AT&T labs. (As an aside, CommVault was also a spin-off from AT&T Labs. Those lab guys must have been doing some amazing backup stuff!)

One of the main questions in the blog discussion was how the dedicated VMware backup providers, Veeam and Quest, could compete over the long term with the entrenched backup ISVs who have massive installed bases and larger sales and engineering resources. Veeam’s position (as described in their post) was that they would stay focused on VM data protection and innovate rapidly thus maintaining a consistent leadership position. Quest’s response suggested that they wanted to move beyond VMware-only data protection to backup physical servers as well. The BakBone acquisition is a natural embodiment of this strategy. However, the acquisition creates new challenges.

The two biggest challenges for Quest are competition and engineering. The addition of BakBone elevates Quest from a niche player that protects only VMs to a full backup application provider. Companies that once ignored them such as Symantec, IBM and others will take note. If the incumbent ISVs see Quest taking marketshare with NetVault (e.g. becoming successful), you can bet that the incumbents will aggressively counterattack with take out programs and other incentives. The engineering outlook is equally challenging. Post acquisition, Quest must aggressively innovate in both VMware data protection and physical server protection. VMware innovation should not be a problem, but differentiating in traditional backup is much more difficult since the market is relatively mature and NetVault has had limited success. The process of integrating vRanger and NetVault must also begin immediately which further adds to the burden.

In summary, it is clear why Quest acquired BakBone – they see a future of combined physical and virtual server protection. However, you have to wonder whether Quest is spreading themselves too thin. It is hard enough to do one thing really well (VMware protection) and now they have increased the challenge dramatically by adding NetVault and all of its related agents and features. Additionally, the incumbent backup ISVs are likely to attack aggressively if threatened which could hinder success. However, there is a large revenue opportunity if (a big if, in my opinion) Quest can pull this off. Only time will tell if they are successful.

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Data Protection Reporting: A Survey

Jay Livens — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:46:00 +0000

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 are at risk for an outage. The idea of reporting on the efficacy of backup and recovery operations is a critical component of understanding whether data is protected. Clearly all backup applications embed some level of reporting to provide this information, but is it enough?

Each customer has different reporting needs and requirements and the base reporting functionality included in all backup application is likely sufficient for many environments. However, there is an ecosystem of companies (including the backup ISVs themselves) who sell very granular reporting tools. These applications provide much richer reporting and often incorporate broader monitoring of other datacenter components. These features are valuable, but the benefit likely varies by end user. The basic functionality may be sufficient for smaller, homogeneous environments while larger datacenters with disparate hardware will likely see more value from advanced reporting.

This situation has made me wonder how my readers manage and report on their data protection environments, and I created the survey question below to gain your insights.

Thank you in advance for your participation; all comment feedback is welcome too.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

CDP data protection and VMware backup: A response

Jay Livens — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:36:00 +0000

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 with Curtis’s detailed analysis of CDP technology, but my point was simply that three years ago CDP was hot. Regardless of whether, there were 5 or 5,000 customers, the technology was the talk of the industry. At the time, new CDP vendors were frequently appearing and existing companies were trying to position their solutions as “CDP-like”. The hype machine was in full motion and it spanned the industry.

Curtis and I agree that not many systems were sold and that the buzz far exceeded the substance. When the hysteria cooled, few of the companies were left standing with the majority of them either being acquired by larger vendors or disappearing. The acquirers packaged these solutions into technologies that are available today such as RecoverPoint from EMC (Kashya acquisition) or Symantec’s NetBackup RealTime (Revivio acquisition). These larger vendors are well positioned to sell the solutions since they have a substantial installed base of data protection customers. (Symantec has a better position since the technology is an add-on option for current Backup Exec users.)

My post suggested that a similar consolidation could occur in the VMware backup space. Server virtualization is an incredibly hot area and protecting VMware servers is a huge problem with real pain. Backup vendors must recognize the disruptive nature of VMware data protection and the importance of optimizing their applications for virtual datacenters. At the same time, VMware has acknowledged the challenge of protecting virtual environments and is developing new technologies (such as VADP) to simplify the process. The incumbent backup ISVs will adopt VMware’s new technologies and will leverage their existing customer relationships and footprints.

The new VM-centric backup providers are in an interesting position between incumbent backup ISVs with large installed bases and broad support for physical and virtual environments and VMware. VMware is enhancing VM data protection with features like VADP and the backup ISVs are trying to enhance their products through VADP support and other technologies. The VM-focused companies must differentiate from both. They have better technology today, but will improvements by both VMware and the backup ISVs erode that leadership? (VMware through VADP and ISVs through their backup apps.) The problem that the VMware backup vendors face is the challenge of “good enough.” They must innovate well beyond what VMware and the backup ISVs can offer or risk being disintermediated by the larger companies who have massive sales teams and installed bases and solutions that are “good enough.”

The challenge of data growth

Jay Livens — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:57:49 +0000

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. Either way, they often generate more data to protect and retain.
New data types – In today’s multimedia-centric world, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of audio, video and image files being created and protected. These files are much larger and more difficult to compress than traditional content.
Merger & Acquisition – As M&A activities occur, the acquiring entity must expand their IT infrastructure to absorb the acquired systems and processes.

The combination of these elements drives data growth and creates data backup, recovery and retention challenges. Growth is constant and the image below (click for a larger view) is a reminder of how data storage and protection has changed. It also brings the question: Do you want one system that can grow with your environment or many small ones that won’t? If the latter, then how about I sell you 20 3380′s to replace your 50TB disk array?

Image source: TheFutureBuzz.com, via @sfoskett

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Will dedicated VMware protection solutions go the way of CDP?

Jay Livens — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:08:10 +0000

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 years ago, CDP was hot. It was a major industry buzzword and several companies were founded focusing exclusively on technologies that claimed to enable CDP functionality. CDP enabled instantaneous backup, recovery and roll-back of critical data and some predicted that it would replace traditional data protection. CDP upstarts made voluminous statements about the technology and the future, but they had miniscule installed bases particularly when compared to the traditional backup application vendors. The challenge for the CDP providers was convincing end users to replace or augment existing backup infrastructures. This was a challenge since end users had substantial investments in backup software, hardware and knowledge. Although CDP provided customer value, it was only practical as a complementary solution to traditional backup and CDP functionality should have been embedded in existing backup applications. As a result, most dedicated CDP companies were either bought or went away, and we now see backup ISVs including CDP functionality.

The dedicated VMware backup market is analogous to CDP. The vendors are selling solutions that only protect virtualized servers. The applications are effective, but enterprises have a range of computing assets and this approach forces them to maintain separate backup infrastructures for physical and virtual environments. Does this approach make economic and business sense? In the short term perhaps, but in the long-term the answer is no. Companies are looking for ways to improve IT efficiency and flexibility. Forcing separate data protection silos conflicts with this goal.

The other point to consider is that traditional backup ISVs are rapidly improving their virtualization support. Clearly the trend towards virtualization is real and these large ISVs recognize that enhanced support for virtual servers is a critical competitive differentiator. The recent release of the vStorage APIs for Data Protection was an important milestone which enhanced VMware’s native backup functionality. It leveled the playing field by providing universal access to the same feature set, and was rapidly adopted by the large backup ISVs. The dedicated VMware backup providers adopted these technologies too, but the new technology weakened their competitive position.

Dedicated VMware data protection applications face a difficult path. Like the CDP solutions before them, they are competing with large backup ISVs that have substantial installed bases and more corporate resources. At the same time, the traditional backup companies are devoting substantial resources to enhancing their existing platforms to provide improved VMware protection. Today’s dedicated VMware only backup application providers must find radical new methods to innovate or risk disaggregation just like the CDP companies before them.

9/9/2010 update - I just posted another blog entry on this topic clarifying my thoughts.

Agent-based VMware Backups

Jay Livens — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:37:27 +0000

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 migrate to backup methodologies that support VMware’s VADP functionality, but believe that there will always be a subset of people who rely on the agent-based approach. When implementing the agent-based approach, you should consider the following:

Benefits of Agent-Based Backup Models:

Transparent to existing processes – The agent-based approach is exactly the same as the traditional physical server model and so most backup administrators are familiar with the process. With this approach, each VM has a separate client backup license and transfers its to the backup server over the LAN.

Granular restores – Each VM is backed up at the file level. Therefore, standard incremental and/or full backup policies apply and file-level recoveries are possible regardless of OS.

Application consistency – Backup vendors provide a variety of server agents that ensure that specific applications (like Exchange, SQL or Oracle) are quiesced prior to backup. These same agents can be used inside the VMs to ensure that running applications are in a consistent state during backup. A consistent backup ensures the fastest and most reliable recoveries.

Challenges of Agent-Based Backup Models:

System resources – The process of backing up a VM can be I/O and CPU intensive – a situation that is exacerbated by backing up multiple VMs on the same host simultaneously. The agent-based approach creates the challenge of managing the backup process to minimize simultaneous VM backups. The proliferation of VMs can make this process highly complex.

Software licenses – This approach requires a client license for every VM that is protected plus the end user must purchase and install new client licenses every time a new VM is provisioned. The management of client licenses can rapidly become challenging.

Bare metal recovery – One of the benefits of VMware is the ability to duplicate VMDK files easily to allow for the rapid creation of new VMs. Ideally, a VMware backup would enable this functionality by providing an image-based backup and recovery feature. Unfortunately, the traditional agent-based model does not meet this requirement. Agent backups are file-based and so the only recovery possible is at the file level. If a VM fails and must be recovered, then the traditional restore process of installing the OS, then the desired application and finally recovering the data will apply.

It is clear that there are benefits and challenges to the agent-based backup approach. This model is very familiar to most backup administrators since it is nearly identical to a physical server backup process. The approach ignores some of the advanced features in VMware such as the VMware API for Data Protection (VADP). However, the mature application support of the agent-based model still makes it appropriate for some data types, and will maintain its relevance long into the future.

Poll: VMware backup methodology

Jay Livens — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:29:29 +0000

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?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Boost vendor lock-in

Jay Livens — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:05:15 +0000

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 although the go-to-market strategy is very different. Of course a major difference is that OST has been shipping for over 3 years and BOOST will not be available until sometime in the second half of 2010.

As discussed previously, EMC/Data Domain was unable to create a true global deduplication solution so were forced to use OST to do the heavy lifting. Ironically, they could only support Symantec NetBackup and BackupExec with the new feature because NetWorker did not offer an advanced D2D interface. The BOOST announcement addressed the issues, but raises new questions. Specifically, BOOST is positioned as an EMC only solution, and it is unclear if the API will be shared with other vendors. In my opinion, this creates a challenge for EMC/Data Domain and NetWorker. Let’s look at how the situation impacts a variety of interested parties.

End users:

Choice is critical. Customers’ needs vary widely and want the flexibility to choose the right solution for their environment. OST supports a range of choices from SMB-centric solutions to large systems targeted at enterprise datacenters. The offerings vary on numerous metrics including price, performance, scalability and reliability. SEPATON’s VTL offerings provide the fastest performance with the ability to ingest data at over 17 TB/hr and we will provide similar performance leadership with OST. If you want the highest performance D2D backups while using NetWorker, then Data Domain is your only choice. Fortunately, SEPATON’s VTL performance is maintained in NetWorker environments and so customers will have a high performance Fibre Channel option. But if you want an IP-based backup, then BOOST’s exclusively support of Data Domain is limiting. If you want choice and the ability to compare different solutions on an even playing field, you can’t have it with NetWorker. This puts the application at a competitive disadvantage versus NetBackup.

NetWorker:

BOOST brings a much needed improvement to NetWorker’s disk-based backup functionality, but unfortunately these benefits are limited to the Data Domain platform. If you compare NetWorker and NetBackup, the openness of OST is a clear advantage. Of course this is just one of many features, but it appears that NetWorker has not improved its competitive positioning in this area.

EMC:

EMC has historically been a storage centric company, and BOOST’s exclusive support of Data Domain reflects this heritage. By opening the API only to their own products, EMC is giving Data Domain a competitive advantage in IP-based backup performance. From EMC’s perspective this is good because it could drive up adoption and lock in of Data Domain. This may well be true for existing NetWorker customers; however, for customers thinking about moving to NetWorker, this “lock-in” limitation could hurt adoption.

In summary, EMC’s strategy with BOOST is all about vendor lock-in. They do not want to support third party platforms or an open architecture; instead they are forcing customers to purchase Data Domain solutions. Clearly driving more Data Domain sales is good for EMC, but the lack of choice is bad for customers. At best, BOOST maintain NetWorker’s competitive position versus NetBackup. OST’s support of multiple platforms is a compelling differentiator and competing software ISVs will compete aggressively using the mantra of openness. I believe that the lock-in strategy will ultimately hurt NetWorker marketshare and competitiveness.

Disclosure: SEPATON is an EMC NetWorker partner and we fully support NetWorker environments both with VTL and deduplication.

Data protection storage and business value

Jay Livens — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:41:01 +0000

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 model relies on a generic software stack that can use any hardware or storage platform. This extreme flexibility also creates extreme headaches. The software provider or ISV cannot certify every hardware and environment combination and so the customer is responsible for installing, qualifying and testing their system. Initial setup can be difficult, but support can be even harder.

What happens if the product is not performing? The support complexities become difficult. Do you call your software ISV, your storage vendor, your SAN provider, your HBA vendor? There are a myriad of different hardware pieces at play and the challenge becomes how to diagnose and resolve any product issues. This is less of a problem in small environments with simple needs, and rapidly becomes an issue as data sizes grow.

The other challenge is managing change. The end user needs a solution that can adjust transparently to changing requirements such as stricter SLAs, new applications or data growth. The software-only model places the burden of system management and growth on the end user. Growing these solutions may not sound difficult, but typically involves purchasing and configuring multiple disparate pieces of hardware and software including servers, switches, storage and software licenses. These problems get geometrically worse as systems grow in size.

Storage backup appliances simplify the situation tremendously. The vendor provides a fully qualified and supported solution with a single point of contact. If a problem arises, the appliance provider will address the issue directly thus avoiding the finger pointing issues that are common with multi-vendor solutions. As environments change, the vendor will simplify the process and provide a supported upgrade path. However, remember that scalability varies widely and so the upgrade path will be more transparent with some solutions.

In summary, pure software-based deduplication solutions can provide strong business value in smaller homogeneous environments. However, as data sizes grow, they rapidly become complex and costly to manage.

Pondering VPLEX and backup

Jay Livens — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:04:46 +0000

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 another flavor of storage virtualization which is already offered by many vendors, and got me thinking about protecting VPLEX data.

Traditional data protection architectures revolve around the concept of a master backup server supporting slave media servers and clients. The master server owns the entire backup environment and tells each server when and where to backup. The model is mature and works well in today’s datacenters where servers are static and technologies like VMotion move VM’s to new servers within the confines of the datacenter. However, the concept of global VMotion can break this model.

Now, let’s turn the discussion to VPLEX which theoretical allows you to move virtual machines freely. You can imagine a scenario where your Exchange VM is in Boston today and then is moved to San Diego tonight. That might be nice from a computing and storage standpoint, but what about backup? You have moved the system over 2500 miles and now have to protect it. Do you push the data back to Boston which could consume large amounts of bandwidth or use an alternative backup infrastructure in San Diego? If the latter, you will have to reconfigure the Exchange server backups to point to San Diego’s backup server, but what if you move it back to Boston in a week? One option is to maintain a duplicate Exchange VM in Boston, but how do you put both Exchange VM’s (Boston and San Diego) into hot backup mode simultaneously? (e.g. Instantly quiesce both servers to ensure that data is a consistent state.) Another option would be to cluster your Boston and San Diego backup servers using your WAN connection. However, this quickly becomes complicated particularly if you want the flexibility to move your Exchange server frequently to multiple locations. It rapidly becomes clear that the flexibility of VMotion combined with global data movement creates new challenges.

Virtualized infrastructures provide tremendous business value by enabling many virtual machines to run on one physical machine. Now EMC comes along and suggests that VPLEX could enhance the storage efficiency and flexibility by enabling dynamic data movement. The big problem is data protection. The process of protecting VMware has always been a challenge although VMware has made great strides with the launch of vSphere. VPLEX’s geographic movement creates new challenges. End users need a backup solution that can handle the dynamic movement of VMs over long distance while ensuring that applications are always maintained in a consistent state. The backup solution also needs robust scheduling and tracking mechanism to enable the creation, management, recovery and deletion of consistent VM backups independent of physical location.

It is unclear who will be the eventual winner in global VMware protection. Incumbent ISVs have a strong presence, but there is room for new players with VMware-centric technology. Clearly, EMC owns one stack with Legato, VPLEX and VMware and will try to dominate. However, there are likely to be a range of solutions and choice is good for the end user. The good news is that there is time since true long distance storage virtualization products will not ship until 2011.