Network Appliance, Inc. is collaborating with backup application vendors to integrate their solutions with NetApp NearStore VTL Shadow Tape technology. The integration will significantly accelerate and streamline enterprise data recovery, while integrating seamlessly with users’ current backup application catalog and tape off-siting policies to provide customers with simplicity and ease of management for their data backup, recovery, and protection processes.
NetApp NearStore VTL Shadow Tape technology will specifically integrate with Veritas NetBackup, the market leading backup solution from Symantec.
Matt Kixmoeller, senior director of product management for the NetBackup product line at Symantec, said, “The new Shadow Tape feature extends the value of our customers’ investments in NetBackup software by automating the rapid retrieval of backup data from disk.”
In addition to NetBackup, NetApp Shadow Tape technology will also integrate with backup technologies from BakBone, CommVault, and Syncsort.
Enterprise storage users currently rank integration with backup software as the most important functionality in a VTL, based on the recent Storage Wave 7 study from TheInfoPro, Inc. Backup application-VTL integration (from NetApp and its partners) will automate a recovery process that is currently manual, enabling customers to instantaneously restore backup data from disk that has already been written to physical tapes and shipped to off-site storage, all in a way that is fully compatible with the backup application catalog. The open approach NetApp is taking by working with leading backup application vendors will allow customers to benefit from disk-to-disk backup technology without changing their existing backup processes, dramatically simplifying customer adoption of D2D backup technology into their enterprise backup environments.
“As a result of tight integration between backup applications and VTL solutions, enterprise customers are realizing that integration is a key ingredient to streamlining the success of their backups,” said Mike Karp, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associates. “A cost-effective, efficient VTL solution means faster and more complete operations while at the same time protecting the customer's preexisting investment in scripts, procedures, and policies. IT sites can continue to utilize their backup applications as the control point for backup and recovery operations.”
NetApp NearStore VTL is a dedicated, enterprise-class storage appliance that emulates physical tape libraries, stores large capacities of backup data on disk, and automatically copies data to physical tape under backup application control within any open systems storage environment. NearStore VTL is a disk-to-disk backup solution for all open systems enterprise primary storage, including EMC, Hitachi, and IBM storage environments.
NetApp Shadow Tape technology on NearStore VTL automatically caches backups onto disk, helping to achieve fast restores for backups that have already been off-sited on physical tape while seamlessly integrating within the management framework of integrated backup applications. Shadow Tape increases the value of disk-to-disk backup by improving recovery service levels and reducing management costs. Shadow Tape technology is available today on the NearStore VTL600 and VTL1200.
