select enterprise backup software

Practical IT Research that Drives Measurable Results

Select Enterprise Backup Software

Meet recovery objectives while addressing modern challenges

Introduction

One in four organizations fail to regularly evaluate alternatives to the software that backs up their mission critical data. However, recent developments – such as increased virtualization and expanding storage capacity requirements – have created new challenges for meeting restore objectives while minimizing costs.

This research is designed for:

This research will help you:

CIOs and IT Managers

System Administrators

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planners

Organizations increasing virtualization by 20% or more in the last or next 18 months

Organizations changing their backup architecture strategy

Understand how new challenges are impacting the traditional objectives of enterprise backup.

Assess the feasibility and desirability of switching to a new backup software provider.

Create a shortlist of backup software vendors and select which is the best fit.

Prepare an RFP, and score RFP responses.

Develop implementation plans that address common pitfalls.

This solution set will provide a view into how current challenges are being met by vendors,

to help you select the most appropriate alternative backup solution.

2Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Research Group 3

• Nobody likes evaluating alternative backup software, but organizations that regularly assess their backup software against alternatives are just as successful as those that have just bought the next best thing.

• It’s all about restore. Failure in backup is failure to meet recovery objectives. Always evaluate new features in light of these objectives.

• Thirty-nine percent of organizations have recently implemented a new backup architecture, a perfect opportunity to consider alternative backup software. Backup software is only one part of the backup strategy as a whole.

• Features abound, but it’s all about the restore. Deduplication and virtualization are areas of recent innovation for vendors, but ensure that the cost to add a feature is justified for the objectives that it helps to meet.

• Develop an RFP and assess the vendor landscape. Use the associated RFP template and shortlist tool to document your requirements, score the responses, and refine your shortlist of vendors.

• Assess your overall data management strategy before making your final selection, to ensure that data management, security, and compliance requirements can be met by the current solution.

Evaluate ImplementUnderstand & Strategize

• The objectives of backup have not changed, but new features and functions help the enterprise meet new challenges to these traditional objectives.

• Critical objectives of backup software are restore time objectives, restore point objectives, and restore granularity objectives.

• New challenges include ever increasing backup sizes, backup of virtual infrastructures, and evolving backup architecture strategy.

• Backup software is also only one part of a larger backup system. Meeting RTO, RPO, and RGO involves software, but also primary storage and backup target storage.

Assess your backup and restore options and decide which solutions are the best fits for your backup strategy

Enterprise Backup Software Select Roadmap

1

Backup is boring but too important to be ignored; regular backup review, including alternatives analysis, is critical

Backup should be boring because it is a background activity that ensures the availability of foreground business-enabling IT services. It only becomes interesting if it fails.

Organizations that regularly evaluate their backup software see more success, whether or not the analysis leads to a vendor change. Organizations currently evaluating have let an inefficient solution drive them to change.

• Don’t let a failure be your evaluation driver. An organization that assesses alternatives before serious issues arise can make more thorough assessments and more informed decisions. Organizations that fail to evaluate alternatives see their backup software degrade and are forced to look at new software regardless.

• It’s not just about switching vendors, it’s about knowing your options. Evaluating alternate backup solutions and surveying available features and functionality is a good exercise and a healthy way to assess whether your current solution is still a good fit.

• Be proactive. Complacency inevitably leads to unhappiness. When organizations make the “if it ain’t broke” assumption at the same time they make upgrades and changes to other areas of their infrastructure, their backup software eventually lags.


“You should evaluate backup software annually to ensure that it meets the needs of the organization.

- IT Manager, Mgmt Consulting Services

”• See Appendix B for Success definition

The point in time to which systems and data must be recovered after an outage (e.g. end of previous day’s processing).

The level of objects that can be easily recovered (e.g. a file, an e-mail, a SharePoint document, a directory, a mailbox, a hard drive, a full system image).

It’s about restore. Failure in backup is failure to meet recovery objectives; always evaluate features in light of

these objectives


• It should be called restore software. Backing up data is a regular operational activity, so logically the software component of that activity is called backup software. But the goal of backup is data and system protection for business continuity and disaster recovery. Like buying insurance, the true value of a backup investment is only seen when it is needed, and what is needed is restore.

• Meeting business objectives should be the ultimate measure of success. New features exist to minimize backup windows, minimize time to manage, and mitigate increases to storage and network capacity requirements. However, if you can’t restore the right data on time, then it’s all a failed exercise.

The value of any backup software is in how it helps the enterprise meet these critical objectives at best cost. Any feature or function of backup software that has no impact on meeting your recovery objectives, or the total cost of meeting those objectives, is of no value.

Info-Tech Insight:

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Recovery Granularity Objective (RGO)

The period of time within which systems, applications, or functions must be recovered after an outage (e.g. one business day).

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

“[Our primary reason for changing software was] recovery time. In case of a disaster, every minute is of monetary importance.

- IT Director, Healthcare

”

“ So many companies starve their backup infrastructure until it becomes next to useless.

Three simple rules: 1. Match the class of software to the

environment. 2. Keep your backup software up to date.3. Continue to enhance the architecture as

performance/capacity needs increase.

- Daniel Giles President, Sileg

Consulting Inc.

”

Backup infrastructures are changing; make sure the backup software component is keeping up with your

backup strategyTape isn’t dead yet, but almost two thirds of organizations have recently implemented

or are considering new backup architecture options to house their mission-critical data.

• Out with the old & in with the new. If you’re purchasing new backup media, it’s often a great time to look into new software to fully leverage the benefits of your purchase.

• Two birds with one stone. Upgrading your backup architecture? The time and resources required to integrate new backup media with old software may be offset by automation enabled by newer software. In many cases, the organizations that sell the hardware have partnerships with backup software providers that make integration much easier and reduce overall costs through bundling agreements.

Interest in New Backup Architecture

Backup is not the same as e-mail archiving. For more on this topic see the solution set:

Select an E-Mail Archiving Solution


http://www.infotech.com/research/ss/select-an-e-mail-archiving-solution



External public clouds are emerging as a legitimate backup target; look to how providers integrate cloud

options

• Disk target options include disk arrays such as network attached storage (NAS) and arrays that present themselves on the network as virtual tape libraries (VTLs).

• Cloud targets include targets for primary backup, and cloud targets for secondary data replication for offsite retention and building an archive.

Disk has displaced tape as the dominant backup target media among those implementing new backup architectures. However, cloud options are gaining traction

and are as popular as tape.


Vendor Examples: Two Approaches to Leveraging Cloud

Symantec has developed an extensive portfolio of cloud services ranging from cloud storage for Backup Exec to a full Software-as-a-Service backup solution (Symantec Online Backup). Symantec is also a full service cloud hosting provider (Symantec.Cloud).

CommVault does not have its own cloud products but focuses on partner integration. Backup is managed to nearline (disk) storage for primary backup and fast restore, and then to a farline storage tier (disk, tape, or cloud) for offsite backup and archiving. Through integration partnerships with a range of cloud storage providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Nirvanix, and more), an external cloud target is managed just as tape or disk would be in this farline tier.

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Availability and recovery of systems and data are critical to overall IT service levels. Make sure that backup software integrates and works well with all aspects of the

architecture.

Where this solution set fits: backup software is one part of a storage infrastructure that ensures availability &

recoverability

Other sets that address system/data availability and recovery

Leverage Server Virtualization for DR Affordability and Agility

Mitigate Costs & Maximize Value with a Best-Fit Backup Architecture Strategy

Mitigate Costs & Maximize Value with a Consolidated Network Storage Strategy

•In servers, availability and recovery are boosted by component redundancy (NICs, Power Supplies) as well as clustering of multiple physical and virtual machines.

•In primary storage consolidated in a SAN or NAS array, recovery is achieved through disk redundancy (RAID), built-in capabilities for data snapshots and volume replication, and by replication between arrays (to enable, for example, site to site failover capabilities).

•In backup storage targets, recovery is aided by faster I/O, such as when disk is used instead of tape for random access read, which is significantly faster than sequential read.

VeryBroad

Very Limited

High

Low

Diff

icu

lty

Meeti

ng

O

bje

ctiv

e

Breadth of Media Support

Meeting RPOs/RTOs/RGOs

Backing Up Virtual Machines

Controlling Impact on Storage/Network

Source: Info-Tech Research GroupN=57

Make sure that backup software supports, integrates, and works well with the new or improved architecture.

Better meeting a recovery objective or lessening the impact of backup on the infrastructure may be impacted more by an architectural change than backup software, but the two go hand in hand.

Availability and recoverability can be optimized at almost every system level.


On the backup software features front, virtual backup is an area where vendors are innovating

100%

90%80%70%60%50%40%30%20%10%

0%

Current & Projected Virtualization

For more on how virtualization changes the backup and recovery game, refer to the solution set:

Leverage Server Virtualization for DR Affordability and Agility

2011 is the year that most companies will have more than 50% of their infrastructure virtualized. Virtualization poses both opportunities and challenges for availability and

recovery.

When evaluating vendor offerings, look to how they are employing agentless backup, storage level snapshots, and APIs in the virtual infrastructure (such as VMware ) for fast, low overhead, virtual infrastructure backup.

Info-Tech’s Advice

Get the full benefit of virtualization. A virtual machine is a file. Backing up this file enables full system imaging snapshots and bare metal restores. But if traditional file backup is done within the VM, the activity misses the benefit of backing up the VM itself.

Virtual machines can perform backup like any other source device, by running an agent on the machine that backs up all the data on the machine. But running traditional backups on multiple VMs has a number of drawbacks:

Processor memory overhead requirements. Multiple VMs running multiple backup agents on a single physical server will quickly chew up processor cycles and memory.

Network bandwidth contention. Having multiple VMs running backup jobs on a single server can lead to contention for that server’s physical connection to the network.

Challenges

Opportunity

10

10 Gb

100 Gb

Target-based deduplication. Deduplication is done either as data is written to disk or tape (inline) or after the data is written in a second pass (post process). The primary benefit is reducing the capacity requirements of the backup (e.g. disk-based targets are more cost effective because less disk is required).

Leverage data deduplication to lower cost of backup media through better utilization; vendors offer multiple dedupe

methods

Data deduplication removes redundant read/write data blocks from data being backed up, and keeps an index of the removed redundancies so that the duplicate blocks can be put back in restore.

Deduplication has been a rapidly evolving feature-set in backup over the past two years. Almost all vendors now have dedupe, but approaches differ: source, target,

or both.

“Features such as data dedupe and replication, if not supported by current backup software, should easily justify replacement to a new solution possessing those features.

- IT Director, Manufacturing

”

100 Gb

100 Gb

Source

Target

Source-based deduplication. Data is deduplicated at the source, typically by the backup agent running the backup from the server. While this means more processing overhead to run the agent, the primary benefit is that less data is sent over the network to backup target.

10 Gb

Net

wor

k

10 Gb


Benefits of virtualization plus deduplication, when implemented correctly, are significantly greater than the

sum of their parts

Desktop Virtualization, an Optimal CaseDeduplication is most effective at storing and backing up virtual machines, particularly virtual desktops. Each virtual machine file contains both system data and personal data. Instead of storing the OS 50 times for 50 virtual machines, this information can be deduplicated so that the common system files are stored only once.

Depending on the repetition level in the data sets being stored, deduplication can produce anywhere from a 2:1 to a 50:1 convergence ratio in the backup storage

required.

Before Deduplication

OS File Storage: 12GB x 16 VMs = 192GB

Unique File Storage: 2GB x 16 VMs = 32GB

Total = 224GB

OS File Storage: 12GB x 1 VM = 12GB

Unique File Storage: 2GB x 16 VMs = 32GB

Total = 44GB

Claims of Heavy ConvergenceSome professionals in the industry have claimed as much as a 50:1 ratio in convergence and space saving capabilities in backup storage of virtual machines, although this can vary widely depending on the application.

After Deduplication

Deduplication

Backing up 16 Virtual Machines


Don’t focus on the hype. Be sure to consider every relevant capability in evaluating alternatives

This includes array-based snapshots, replication, and block-level change monitoring.

Snapshots are particularly useful for reducing the impact of backups on availability. The snapshot is backed up leaving the primary data volume available to the application.

Ability to manage, leverage primary storage

arrays Windows-based backup meets the largest share of enterprise backup needs, but ability to support multiple platforms such as Unix, Linux, and proprietary systems is a definite plus for heterogeneous data centers.

On the virtual front, support for VMware should be a given, but support for Hyper-V and Citrix will become more desirable as desktop virtualization begins to take hold.

Support for multiple platforms

Options are changing. Tape, public cloud storage, and disk arrays are all now legitimate targets. In addition to being certified to work with a given target, ability to integrate with target-side features such as built-in data deduplication can be a plus - but so can the ability to manage advanced functionality in the software attached to “dumb” hardware.

Ability to leverage a range of target architectures

Conducting backups for applications that must remain up and running 24x7 is a challenge for many organizations, especially for applications that can depend on large data sets, such as Microsoft SharePoint or Exchange.

In particular, achieving restore granularity at the file, folder, and database level without requiring multiple steps to restore is not a feature offered by all vendors.

Application awareness

BMR has particular value for shortening restore times in disaster recovery scenarios. But restoring entire systems is more complicated than just restoring the files or data to a system.

This is particularly complicated when a system is restored to hardware that has a different configuration than what the system was backed up from.

Bare Metal Restore (BMR)

Backup software plays a critical role in system availability and recovery but often restore granularity objectives are single file or record level.

For example, how easy is it to restore a single file from a backed up virtual machine, or a single document from backed up SharePoint servers, or a set of records from a database server?

Granular restore capabilities

Architecture Integration

Management

Medium-sized healthcare organization gets the most from its current solution by regularly piloting

new features

• The IT group at this organization has been using the same backup software (CA ARCserve) for over ten years, making the indirect switching costs such as training, integration with legacy systems, and restoration of archived data prohibitive.

• Over the years, the IT group has regularly piloted or implemented various optional add-on modules to their existing software to improve backup management and mitigate increasing demands on storage infrastructure.

• All the while, the organization evaluates alternate vendor solutions, to ensure that their current software is up to par regarding their current needs and responding to modern changes to infrastructure, such as backing up VMs.

A medium-sized healthcare organization regularly evaluates available backup features and functionality between its current vendor and other

vendors to ensurecurrency and success.

Key Standouts

10+ yrs Successful backup with the same vendor

0$Vendor switching

costs

Multiple Pilots

Trying new software capabilities kept

organization current

Case Study


“ Backup software needs to change as technology evolves, business process recovery requirements change, and your former backup software no longer meets your needs. In addition, new backup software needs less manpower to achieve these needs. - IT Director, Business Services

”

The question “Can we afford this feature?” may well also be phrased “Can we afford this objective?” if meeting the objective is more expensive than potential loss from failure to meet the objective.

Info-Tech Insight:

Always analyze the costs & benefits of a given feature of backup software against availability & recovery objectives

Example: Continuous Data Protection (CPD)

• What is it? Method of continually tracking changes to data so that recovery can be made to any point in time (unlike, for example, snapshots which can only restore to the point in time of the snapshot).

• Is CDP worth it? Depends entirely on the Restore Point Objective (RPO) of the data being stored. If losing hours or even minutes of rapidly changing data is deemed critically expensive, then CDP is a worthwhile investment. However, if data loss is tolerable within the range of hours or even days, CDP has little value.

• How do we assess the value of the objective? Business impact analysis (BIA) uncovers the cost of data and time loss for the business. BIA should be a part of business continuity planning and can be leveraged to set RTO and RPO for data.

The cost of achieving recovery objectives has to be balanced against the cost of failing to achieve objectives. Differentiate cool-to-have from must-have features.


Refer to Info-Tech’s solution set, Right-Size Enterprise Disaster Recovery Plans and the OptimizeIT program, Business Impact and Risk Assessment to ensure backup software capabilities are in line with business requirements.Don’t waste cash on nice-to-haves when there are essentials left ill considered.

Leverage Info-Tech’s research on disaster recovery & business impact analysis.

Simplification can enable savings. Complex licensing & management, plus maintenance/support, can drive up

costs

In traditional licensing models, you pay by the feature multiplied by the server agent with additional charges for application-specific agents to meet the particular requirements of database servers, or e-mail, or document management such SharePoint servers.


“We made the switch for a number of reasons. Maintenance costs of our previous solution were greater than the purchase price of our current solution. The previous solution used client-based licensing, our current solution is based on backup target capacities. Our current solution also integrates with our SAN storage leveraging snapshot capabilities to reduce backup times where our previous solutions couldn't. - Team Lead/Supervisor, Public Admin

”

Backup software licensing traditionally has been a complex affair where total cost is calculated per server agent with additional charges for advanced features and

application awareness. Premium Price for Premium ProductIn reputational terms, CommVault gets frequent negatives from customers for the complexity and total cost of its licensing. “Love the software, hate the pricing” is a common refrain from CommVault users. HP Data Protector, on the other hand, has been aggressive on license pricing.

Premium Price for Premium ProductIn reputational terms, CommVault gets frequent negatives from customers for the complexity and total cost of its licensing. “Love the software, hate the pricing” is a common refrain from CommVault users. HP Data Protector, on the other hand, has been aggressive on license pricing. Caution: Maintenance GotchaAs with storage, hardware vendors will often lowball (discount) licensing to get the deal but lock the customer into high price maintenance contracts. Some organizations that have changed backup providers cite high support/maintenance costs as a motivation to switch. In product demonstrations, make sure you get value for money spent on maintenance/support.

Caution: Maintenance GotchaAs with storage, hardware vendors will often lowball (discount) licensing to get the deal but lock the customer into high price maintenance contracts. Some organizations that have changed backup providers cite high support/maintenance costs as a motivation to switch. In product demonstrations, make sure you get value for money spent on maintenance/support.

Look for options that reduce complexity by moving away from the by-feature and by-host multipliers. Opportunities for licensing simplification include:

• Solutions that include advanced features and functions in the base license. For example, IBM Tivoli and CA ARCserve have both included deduplication in their products at no additional charge.

• Capacity-based licensing. In capacity-based licensing, cost is based not on the number of host servers protected, but by the total amount of storage backed up. Symantec and CommVault have added capacity-based licensing. (For more on the pros and cons of capacity-based licensing, see slide 41.)

IT services firm cut licensing costs by 30% and eliminated a full time position by switching backup

software

• The IT group in a medium-sized IT services firm was experiencing unreliable restore processes and required a single FTE solely to manage their backup software on an ongoing basis.

• While the organization could not justify switching costs in the past, it was in the process of changing its backup strategy – from disk-to-tape to disk-to-disk – making it an opportune time to consider alternate backup software.

• ,

• Leveraging in-house expertise, the organization selected a backup solution – a combination of HP Data Protector and Microsoft Data Protection Manager – that integrated with existing hardware and provided a familiar user experience for IT staff, eliminating the need for a dedicated backup employee.

• New licensing structure led to an annual savings of 30% in total costs of the backup software, making the improved functionality and integration of the backup software that much sweeter.

A pending change in backup architecture strategy was a trigger for this organization to seriously consider alternative options for

backup software

Key Figures

1 FTP Reduction in staff

30% Annual licensing savings

1 Fewer user interfaces for IT to manage

Case Study

“Backup software needs to change as technology evolves, business process recovery requirements change and your former backup software no longer meets your needs. In addition, new backup software needs less manpower to achieve these needs. - IT Director, Business Services

”Info-Tech Research Group 17


• Evaluate eight different backup software vendors for best fit using Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape.

• Use Info-Tech’s scenario analysis to shortlist vendors according to your current situation with the Backup Software Vendor Shortlist Tool.

• Use Info-Tech’s Backup Software RFP Template to solicit feedback on a set of consistent criteria.

Assess your backup and restore options and decide which solutions are the best fit for your backup strategy


2

• There are a number of backup software vendors in the market, however, market share is generally dominated by Symantec, and to a lesser extent, EMC & IBM.

• For this landscape, Info-Tech focused on those vendors that have a strong market presence and/or reputational presence among small to mid-sized Info-Tech clients.

Backup Software Landscape inclusion criteria: market share, mind share, and solution diversity

Included in the vendor landscape:

•CommVault. Strong pure play vendor known for ease of integration, virtual backup, and ease of use that has respectable market share (8-10%) and has seen a recent surge in mind share.

•Computer Associates (CA). CA has a small market share and targets small and midmarket customers. Known for ease of setup and a strong partnership with VMware.

•EMC. Has strong market share and a comprehensive portfoli0 through recent acquisitions of Data Domain (for deduplication, 2009) and Berkeley Data Systems (for public cloud backup, 2007).

•HP. A feature rich offering that handles virtual environments better than most; its limited mind share as a standalone product means most implementations come from existing HP clients or bundled offerings.

•IBM. Second in market share (15-20%) and increasing in that share of late, IBM has a highly scalable product and strong domain expertise.

•Microsoft. While Microsoft does not have a strong market presence for backup software, it can be a good choice for small shops that have an exclusive investment in Microsoft.

•NetApp/Syncsort. Known for its presence in the backup hardware space, NetApp has carved a niche in the market (~5% share) by partnering with Syncsort and leveraging its data protection capabilities.

•Symantec. Market leader that has dominant market share (approx. 40%) with both its BackupExec & NetBackup offerings. Symantec is known for its strong developer support bringing enterprise features to SMB customers.

Included in the vendor landscape:

•CommVault. Strong pure play vendor known for ease of integration, virtual backup, and ease of use that has respectable market share (8-10%) and has seen a recent surge in mind share.

•Computer Associates (CA). CA has a small market share and targets small and midmarket customers. Known for ease of setup and a strong partnership with VMware.

•EMC. Has strong market share and a comprehensive portfoli0 through recent acquisitions of Data Domain (for deduplication, 2009) and Berkeley Data Systems (for public cloud backup, 2007).

•HP. A feature rich offering that handles virtual environments better than most; its limited mind share as a standalone product means most implementations come from existing HP clients or bundled offerings.

•IBM. Second in market share (15-20%) and increasing in that share of late, IBM has a highly scalable product and strong domain expertise.

•Microsoft. While Microsoft does not have a strong market presence for backup software, it can be a good choice for small shops that have an exclusive investment in Microsoft.

•NetApp/Syncsort. Known for its presence in the backup hardware space, NetApp has carved a niche in the market (~5% share) by partnering with Syncsort and leveraging its data protection capabilities.

•Symantec. Market leader that has dominant market share (approx. 40%) with both its BackupExec & NetBackup offerings. Symantec is known for its strong developer support bringing enterprise features to SMB customers.


Microsoft

13%17%15%

CA

5%

CommVault

IBM

14%

EMC

10%

15%

10%

27%

Symantec

31%

50%

25%

Symantec dominates mindshare, but CommVault, EMC, and IBM occupy the minds of the rest

Small (1-10 IT Staff)Medium (11-49 IT Staff)

CommVault

All Others

EMC

15%

23%

57%

15%

0%

NetApp Symantec

Large (50+ IT Staff)

Survey respondents were asked to indicate which of the eight vendors in this landscape they had evaluated in the

last 18 months.Large-sized organizations look for vendors that cite scalability and performance, and solid support for heterogeneous environments as strengths. Given their high performance demands, varied application and data needs, and growing storage capacity requirements, these capabilities are crucial.

Small and mid-sized organizations value ease-of-use and management, as IT staff typically wear many hats. However, many mid-sized organizations utilize solutions typically thought of as large enterprise solutions because of their heterogeneous environment.

Backup Software Evaluation Criteria & Weighting FactorsProduct Evaluation

Vendor Evaluation

Virtual infrastructure backup, deduplication, and data management integration.

Advanced Capabilities

Integration with primary storage arrays, support for multiple targets, and multiple platform support.


Restore granularity, application awareness, and ease of use.Management

Product

Vendor

Support avenues and domain expertise. Support

Capabilities

Product vision, portfolio breadth, and company size.

VendorMaturity

Market share, mind share, and global reach.Market

Presence

Management Architecture Integration


SupportCapabilities

VendorMaturity

MarketPresence


Backup Software Vendor Landscape category definitions

Category Rating Definition

Champion Champions receive high scores for most evaluation criteria and offer excellent value. They have a strong market presence and are usually the trend setters for the industry.

Competitor Competitors strike a strong balance between product and vendor attributes. They have the potential to become future industry leaders if they address the missing links in their product offerings.

Emerging Player Emerging players are newer vendors who are starting to gain a foothold in the marketplace. They balance product and vendor attributes, but score lower relative to market Champions.

Innovator Innovators have demonstrated innovative product strengths that act as their competitive advantage in appealing to niche segments of the market.

Industry Standard Industry standard vendors are well established players with very strong vendor credentials, but with more average product scores.

For a complete description of Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape methodology, and a comprehensive list of the evaluation criteria used, see Appendix B.


Backup Software Vendor Landscape

Backup Software Vendor ScorecardProduct Vendor



Management MaturitySupport

CapabilitiesMarket

Presence

CommVault

Symantec

EMC

IBM

CA

NetApp/Syncsort

HP

Microsoft

Note: “Harvey Ball” scores are produced by normalizing weighted scores for each category, resulting in rankings for each category.

For example, an empty circle does not indicate a zero score; it indicates the lowest score in that category relative to the other products.

= 0 = 1 = 2 = 3 = 4Legend:


CommVault Simpana offers ease of use and broad platform and virtualization support

Strengths• CommVault has a strong reputation for customer support. It’s one

of the few companies whose solution is developed entirely in-house and from a common code base; the company knows its product well.

• A recent Info-Tech survey indicates that Simpana is viewed as the easiest solution to use, supporting CommVault’s position as a unified solution viewable through a single pane of glass; recent developments include source deduplication, script-free snapshot control, as well as scheduling and management of snapshots.

• Simpana supports a wide array of OS and virtual platforms, making it a good fit for both homogeneous and heterogeneous environments.

• Migration tools to reduce complexity of moving from competitor products.

Challenges• CommVault has made great strides recently in developing mind

share, but its challenge will be to convert that to further market share in 2011.

• Info-Tech has received feedback in the last six months that CommVault’s licensing structure is confusing and pricing is higher than competitors; however, its recent introduction of capacity-based pricing and capacity management & monitoring tools may help rectify this issue.

Info-Tech InsightCommVault has made recent strides in market share growth by enabling improved transition from other solutions, offering automatic conversion of legacy backup agents to Simpana agents, and auto-discovery & set-up of VMs.

According to an Info-Tech survey, more than half of organizations looking at CommVault are large enterprises, where Simpana was one of the top two solutions considered (23% of the time). CommVault customers were also most likely to meet RPOs & RTOs.

“We have integrated all the components into a completely integrated approach that starts with a single policy at the top, extends through the array/snapshot layer, drives deduplicated data to the various end points, and finishes out in the cloud…Providing flexibility and mixing and matching to fit the best use-case is always a hallmark of the Simpana platform strategy.” -

CommVault

Champion

Solution: SimpanaEmployees: 1300Headquarters: Oceanport, New JerseyWebsite: CommVault.comFounded: 1996Presence: NASDAQ: CVLT FY10 Revenue: $271.0M

Symantec is the 800-pound gorilla that brings enterprise capabilities to SMEs

Strengths• Symantec’s strong developer support (1000+) allows it to extend

enterprise features to SMB customers.• Both solutions offer exceptional integrated deduplication and

integrated archiving to fill out Symantec’s already comprehensive offerings.

• Provides granular and flexible virtual restore functionality in VMware (solutions can look inside VMDK and .vhd files using FlashBackup to crack open files) and presents as both file-based & image-based backup, simultaneously eliminating a multi-step restore process.

• To simplify deployment & management of backup & deduplication technology, Symantec offers appliances with both client & media server deduplication in one package.

• In an Info-Tech survey, Symantec customers were most successful in monitoring & reporting on their backup environment among their peers.

Challenges• Info-Tech clients have expressed concern over Symantec’s quality

of customer service and support, which was supported by Info-Tech’s survey where Symantec scored lowest among its peers in this regard (69% of clients cited as “satisfied”).

Info-Tech InsightSymantec’s Backup Exec is designed for homogeneous Windows environments and has strong deduplication functionality, taken in part from its counterpart, NetBackup.

NetBackup is suited to organizations with diverse, data center focused environments providing broad application support.

While Symantec’s Backup Exec and NetBackup solutions are seen as SMB and large enterprise options respectively, Info-Tech’s recent survey suggests NetBackup is equally popular in large and medium organizations.

“Some people like sports cars and some people like sports utility vehicles. Other vendors might try to sell you a four-wheel drive Ferrari or something that is some sort of hybrid of the two, and what you end up doing is not getting the best of either.

What we’ve done with Backup Exec and NetBackup is to split them and to say we’re gonna have the very best sports utility vehicle and the very best sports car.” - Symantec

Champion

Solutions: Backup Exec & NetBackupEmployees: 17,500+Headquarters: Mountain View, CaliforniaWebsite: Symantec.comFounded: 1982Presence: NASDAQ: SYMC FY10 Revenue: $6.0B

CA offers ease-of-use, advanced monitoring features, and strong virtual infrastructure

managementStrengths• ARCserve is developed primarily in-house, making CA extremely

knowledgeable of its product.• ARCserve has been described by Info-Tech clients as easy to use,

set up, and manage, with standout dashboarding, reporting, and infrastructure visualization capabilities.

• CA has a strong partnership with VMware, resulting in very effective virtual backup capabilities and functionality, especially with regards to ease of management. CA is among market leaders in this regard.

• Application awareness is a strength, with excellent restore granularity for Active Directory and SharePoint.

• Target deduplication is offered as part of its standard offering.• CA leveraged its 2006 acquisition of Xosoft to deliver a family of

products, including D2D, Replication, and High Availability offerings, available individually or together as a complete solution.

Challenges• Info-Tech clients have described customer support as a concern

in the past as CA has relied on the channel, but have stated that support has improved significantly over the last year.

• ARCserve does not offer source-side deduplication.

Info-Tech InsightThe CA ARCserve family of products is primarily targeted at the SME market, with a strong foothold in Europe.

The products are designed to be easy to use, resource efficient, cost effective, and flexible to meet the needs of the small enterprise, where IT may not have spare time and workforce to devote to administrating backup software.

“The CA ARCserve Family of Products provides integrated easy-to-use tools and innovative technology so customers get a complete strategy to manage backup, recovery, and availability of their applications, data and systems to keep their entire physical and virtualized environment highly available.”

- CA

Competitor

Solution: ARCserveEmployees: 13,200Headquarters: Islandia, New YorkWebsite: ARCserve.comFounded: 1976Presence: NASDAQ: CA FY10 Revenue: $4.4B

EMC brings dominant deduplication capabilities to leading storage

hardwareStrengths• Far and away the market leader in consolidated storage

hardware, EMC’s backup software integrates well with its proprietary primary storage array technology.

• Broad OS and virtual platform support among market leaders in this regard, with especially good support for VMware.

• EMC augmented its already strong deduplication capabilities through acquisition of Data Domain (2009) and is currently the market leader in this regard, offering source deduplication as part of its Avamar and NetWorker solutions and target-based deduplication through its Data Domain appliances.

• EMC also offers Avamar Data Store, a preconfigured appliance shipped with Avamar software that boasts easy onsite setup and simplified deployment and management, and Avamar Virtual Edition for VMware, a fully virtualized backup and recovery solution that simplifies management of virtual machine backup.

Challenges• While EMC’s products can be deployed individually, this

modularity means that solutions cannot all be managed through a single interface. This can be a challenge for Info-Tech’s customers as they try to do more with less and manage their backup environment with a less-skilled workforce.

• Maintenance costs have also been expressed as a concern by Info-Tech clients.

Info-Tech InsightEMC’s Avamar solution is targeted at mid-sized and large enterprises with particular strength in data reduction, making it a good fit for VMware environments, remote offices, and LAN/NAS servers.

EMC’s NetWorker backup software is a highly scalable solution targeted to large-sized organizations with heterogeneous enterprise platforms and application requirements.

Competitor

Solutions: Avamar & NetWorkerEmployees: 48,500Headquarters: Hopkinton, MassachusettsWebsite: EMC.comFounded: 1979Presence: NASDAQ: EMC FY10 Revenue: $17B

HP offers low-cost backup software with HP products as strong integrators

Strengths• HP offers an affordable price and claims they can save

customers up to 70% over competitive solutions.• Data Protector’s primary strength is ease of integration with

HP hardware, putting it at the top of the shortlist for HP shops.

• HP Manager of Manager (MoM) creates a highly scalable Data Protector backup environment that includes hundreds to thousands of Disk Agents and Media Agents. This allows for setting of corporate policies and monitoring from a central point, while enabling control of each remote site to remain in the hands of local administrators.

• HP offers automated scripting, simplifying ongoing management of the backup environment.

• HP offers strong API-level integration for applications and storage, which simplifies backup management and provides greater resilience to disruptions in customer environments.

• HP has a great global support and services network.• Data Protector’s virtual infrastructure capabilities are on par

with current market leaders.

Challenges• HP’s current challenge is that it holds limited mind share in

the enterprise backup software market. A recent Info-Tech survey indicates that 8% of organizations looking at alternate backup software considered Data Protector.

Info-Tech InsightHP’s global reach and name brand recognition would seem to suggest a greater share in the backup software market.

However, DataProtector seems to have had difficulty expanding outside of HP’s existing client base. Its strong integration with its own product line is certainly a strength for IT shops, but its limited support of different OSs may keep it from reaching a wider audience.

Competitor

Solution: Data ProtectorEmployees: 304,000Headquarters: Palo Alto, CaliforniaWebsite: HP.comFounded: 1939Presence: NASDAQ: HPQ FY10 Revenue: $126B

IBM brings scalability and a comprehensive feature set as a standard

offering Strengths• The most recent release of TSM brings improved scalability to an

already highly scalable product. With DB2 as the TSM internal database, a single TSM server can scale to manage billions of objects.

• IBM has a very good global support and services network and strong domain expertise, as well as major market share.

• TSM provides adequate data reduction features that include source and target deduplication, as well as compression, progressive/block-level incremental, and very good support for virtual infrastructure backup.

• IBM offers very broad support for a variety of OSs, on hardware ranging from servers to mainframes.

Challenges• IBM has been late to market on support for backing up virtual

infrastructure; however, the current capabilities of TSM are quite good with improved VMware integration.

• While IBM has made recent efforts to improve usability and simplify management, it still faces difficulty overcoming perception as being difficult to manage.

Info-Tech InsightWhile IBM is typically thought of as a large enterprise offering, a recent Info-Tech survey indicated that 27% of mid-sized organizations had considered IBM when looking for alternative backup software.

IBM customers were also found to be the most confident that their mission-critical data was completely secure, relative to organizations using other solutions.“We improved our scalability, availability and performance…[and] we introduced built-in data deduplication. So it’s free of charge. Both server and client side duplication are supported by TSM, so either source or target have pre-processing, depending on what you need.[We] simplified the management by introducing a whole new admin center that can run and manage either TSM as a standalone or with our other products within our portfolio.” - IBM

Competitor

Solution: Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM)Employees: 399,000Headquarters: Armonk, New YorkWebsite: IBM.comFounded: 1924Presence: NASDAQ: IBM FY09 Revenue: $95.8B

Microsoft offers basic but affordable functionality for Microsoft clients

Strengths• Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager’s (DPM) biggest

strength might be it’s strong application awareness for Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, and other Microsoft applications.

• DPM is a very cost effective option for organizations with significant investment in Microsoft.

• While DPM is really geared toward smaller Windows-only shops, it scales reasonably well, with a DPM server capable of backing up 100 servers,

• Because DPM is primarily deployed by Microsoft shops, and DPM is part of the Windows Server System, IT administrators are already familiar with the interface making setup and maintenance relatively simple and requiring minimal training.

Challenges• Microsoft does not offer deduplication as part of their

backup software which has become a standard offering for backup over the last 12 months.

• DPM’s backup and restore functionality for virtual environments is also rather basic and does not offer support for non-Microsoft virtual platforms – difficult given VMware and Citrix’s leading positions in the virtualization market.

Info-Tech InsightWhen compared to other backup software solutions, Microsoft’s DPM seems very limited in its capabilities. However, there are many IT shops that will find DPM to be a good fit in their environment.

Info-Tech recommends DPM for small to medium shops that already have a significant investment in Microsoft – both on the server and the end user side. Other shops may look to DPM to manage the MSFT side of the house and integrate it with another solution for the rest of the environment.

Competitor

Solution: Data Protection ManagerEmployees: 89,000+Headquarters: Redmond, WashingtonWebsite: Microsoft.comFounded: 1975Presence: NASDAQ: MSFT FY09 Revenue: $62.5B

NetApp’s partnership with Syncsort results in a unique solution with minimal backup

windowsStrengths• Ease of use and integration is standout in NetApp Syncsort

Integrated Backup (NSB), even in heterogeneous environments.• While primarily known for primary storage, NetApp provides a

unique approach that minimizes backup windows through snapshots and replication, allowing minimal data to be taken from a production environment at a time.

• Powerful partnership. In the past Info-Tech has found Syncsort Backup Express (BEX) to be a solid contender that was not well enough known.

• All backups are in native (not proprietary ) format and a full catalog spans disk & tape for wildcard search and restore.

• NSB conducts replication at the block level and eliminates media servers as intermediaries between sources & targets.

Challenges• Overall, virtual backup capabilities are good, but not a standout

for NSB. However, it does offer exceptional virtual restore capabilities and can create a bootable VM for RTO of minutes from any backup image.

• NetApp is still relatively unknown in the backup software market as NSB was only released as a joint backup solution in September 2010. NSB will have to be more widely tested and proven before the market can decide what direction this product will take.

Info-Tech InsightNetApp was positioned as a Champion in Info-Tech’s solution set, Select a Consolidated Storage Platform. NetApp has been working well for many mid-sized enterprises that are consolidating and virtualizing storage. NetApp Syncsort Backup shows some serious promise in simplified backup management. The challenge will be to prove that they can deliver in both markets in a hardware-software pairing.

“It’s not just about efficiency, it’s about eliminating the backup window… Only move the data that you absolutely have to.”

- NetApp

Competitor

Solution: NetApp Syncsort Integrated BackupEmployees: 8,000+Headquarters: Sunnyvale, CaliforniaWebsite: NetApp.comFounded: 1992Presence: NASDAQ: NTAP FY10 Revenue: $3.93B

Service Description

• Online backup pioneer which has morphed into a cloud backup provider.

• Cloud backup provider that is now owned by EMC.

Vendor Description• Through partnership with VMware, Veeam

provides virtual infrastructure management, primarily for small enterprises. Veeam does, however, have plugins for HP & Microsoft enterprise management consoles.

• Using virtual backup appliances (virtual machines backing up virtual machines), PHD Virtual offers virtual backup options for both Citrix and VMware.

• Vizioncore’s vRanger was the first-to-market virtual backup-only vendor in the space, was acquired by Quest software in 2008, and provides virtual backup to VMware only. Quest recently acquired BakBone Software, strengthening Quest’s data protection capabilities.

Out of scope does not imply inferiority. Consider whether these more specialized vendors meet your backup needs

• As backup software has matured, most pure play vendors that offered niche offerings – such as deduplication – have been swallowed up by larger companies.

• Virtual backup is the exception. Virtual backup-only vendors emerged as organizations with legacy backup developed larger virtual infrastructures that necessitated more sophisticated management software.

• As organizational infrastructure becomes more virtualized, using virtual backup-only vendors as supplements to backup software becomes a serious consideration, especially for organizations where switching comes with prohibitive costs or compliance hurdles.

Virtual Infrastructure Backup Vendors

Cloud Backup Providers• Cloud Storage is not being heavily

adopted yet, mostly due to the increased bandwidth required to back up straight to the cloud.

• With virtually no upfront costs, however, it may be appropriate for small shops with smaller, infrequently changing databases.


It’s not all in the rankings: understanding your situation can be the best way to develop a shortlist


If You Are... Then Consider…

An organization that can afford limited or no time for backup windows.

NetApp Syncsort Express

An organization that relies on a homogeneous Windows environment with little reliance on Linux or proprietary platforms.

Microsoft, Symantec BackupExec

An organization with a larger, diverse infrastructure.Symantec NetBackup, CommVault

Looking to reduce management complexity and bolster ease of use with a single pane of glass.

CA, CommVault, NetApp

Invested to a large degree with IBM, EMC, or HP hardware.

IBM, EMC, HP respectively

Relying on a highly virtualized environment.Symantec (VMware only), CommVault, CA, EMC, HP, IBM

Utilizing heavy production workloads that rely on Apple Mac OS X.

CA, EMC, IBM, Symantec

Unhappy with your current backup software’s handling of virtual backup, but don’t want to completely change backup software.

Quest, Veeam, PHD Virtual

Identify leading solution candidates with the Backup Software Vendor Shortlist Tool

The Info-Tech Backup Software Vendor Shortlist Tool is designed to generate a customized shortlist of vendors based on key priorities.

The Backup Software Vendor Shortlist Tool offers the ability to modify:• Overall Vendor vs. Product

weightings• Vendor criteria weightings

(e.g. vendor maturity, support capabilities, market presence)

• Product criteria weightings (e.g. architecture integration, advanced features, management)

Use this tool at an early stage of analysis to identify vendors that will best meet business requirements.


Issue an RFP to ensure the vendor fits your needsand not the other way around

• Issuing an RFP is a critical step in your vendor selection process.

• Info-Tech’s Backup Software RFP Template is populated with critical elements including:

The Statement of Work Proposal Preparation Instructions Scope of Work Specifications & Requirements Vendor Qualifications & References Budget & Estimated Pricing Vendor Certification


To get the most value out of the RFP process, use theBackup Software RFP Scoring Tool

• Use Info-Tech’s Backup Software RFP Scoring Tool to evaluate RFP responses. The tool is prebuilt with essential criteria and complements the Backup Software RFP Template.

• Use the tool to drive the selection meeting with your procurement department.


Pricing information can bias business and technical reviewers and distract their attention from evaluating business and technology requirements. Consider withholding vendor pricing information from evaluators until after functional criteria have been fully evaluated.

Info-Tech Insight:

A standard and transparent process for scoring individual vendor RFP responses will help ensure that internal team biases are minimized.

Take charge of vendor finalist demonstrationswith the Backup Software Vendor Demonstration Script

The Info-Tech Backup Software Vendor Demonstration Script is designed to provide vendors with a consistent set of instructions for key scenarios.

This template includes examples for the following scenarios:

• Implementation• Configuration• Restore Granularity Capabilities• Backup & Restore of Virtual

Infrastructure• Deduplication Compression &

Speed

Modify this demo script template to fit your individual needs and requirements.

An onsite product demonstration will help enterprise decision makers better understand the capabilities & constraints of various solutions.



• Consider broader data management issues related to implementing new backup software.

• Rate vendor responses with the Backup Software RFP Scoring Tool.

• Take charge of demonstrations with the Backup Software Vendor Demonstration Script.

Assess your backup and restore options and decide which solutions are the best fits for your backup strategy


3

It’s not all skittles and rainbows: consider benefits of new software against the broader canvas of enterprise data

management & protection

Know the issues. Capacity-based licensing, data deduplication, and improved backup and recovery times with a new solution all have negative counterparts. Consider Info-Tech’s scenarios on the next three slides that outline potential challenges around:

• Implications of capacity-based licensing for archiving and virtualization strategy.

• Aligning data encryption requirements with data deduplication capabilities and strategy.

• Future recovery obligations, for example, compliance for legacy backups.


“Backup Administrators should be concerned about building a[n overarching] backup solution where backup [software] has a role.

Administrators have to get away from just looking at their backup up software and start looking at their overall backup strategy.

- Backup Storage Engineer, Healthcare

”

In addition to fitting with broad availability & recovery hardware architectures, backup software needs to fit with broader data management, security, and compliance

objectives.

Capacity-based licensing is not for everybody but it can lower complexity and fit into broader data management

practicesCapacity-based licensing holds the promise of a simpler and cheaper licensing model.

It also can be leveraged to support better data management practices.


• Traditional licensing is by server, in addition to charges for application-aware backup agents (for example, Microsoft Exchange) as well as new functions (such as deduplication).

• Capacity-based licensing is based on the amount (per TB) being backed up. The number of servers is no longer a multiplier.

• Benefits of capacity-based licensing include:

1.Greater simplicity in license management, particularly if there are many servers and applications being protected.

2.Size and complexity of the server infrastructure does not drive costs, but rather the total amount of data being backed up. Regular backup of one 1 TB of data from 10 servers will theoretically cost the same as regular backup of 1 TB from 30 servers.

3.Up to 50% savings are claimed by vendors as their customers have moved to capacity-based licensing.

Capacity-based licensing benefits those with many applications and servers to be protected but relatively modest total data to be backed up. Enterprises with very large data stores that need to be protected but more modest numbers of servers don’t fit this model.

Virtual infrastructures can be a problem for capacity-based licensing because it focuses on actual data being backed up. For example, in a 10 Terabyte SAN with only 1 TB of data stored, the licensing is for 1 TB. In virtual infrastructures, the virtual hard drive is a file. So a 1 TB virtual hard drive might be a 1 TB file to be backed up even if the virtual hard drive only has 100 GB of data stored on it.

Leverage capacity-based licensing for cost justification for better data management and storage tiers. Archiving proponents argue that up to 70% of data subject to backup is unchanged and should not be in primary storage but rather in an archive. Capacity-based licensing exposes the cost of backup by data volume, reducing the volume reduces the cost of backup. Capacity licensing should also incorporate some overhead for expected data growth.

Pitfall #1

Recommendation

Pitfall #2

Make sure a data reduction strategy is compatible with efforts

to secure the dataEnsure potential backup software can play nice with your encryption strategy.


• Data security is becoming ever more crucial. Securing enterprise data is an increasingly important task as lines between private and public domains are blurred and the public cloud becomes a more viable backup target.

• Data is the family jewels of the organization. Encrypting data in storage is an important means of protecting this valuable commodity, particularly in cases where the data container moves outside of the organization; for example, when tapes are moved to an offsite location or when private corporate data is stored on a multi-tenant public cloud.

• Data encryption can frustrate goals to reduce capacity requirements. While protecting data is critically important, so is reducing the cost of storing the data. Deduplicating data can dramatically reduce storage requirements but encryption can pose a serious problem for deduplication.

Deduplication scans data for duplicate blocks of storage and replaces the duplicates with an indexed reference hash value. Encryption scrambles data at the block level - making each block unique. Encrypted blocks cannot be deduplicated because there is no duplication.

Deduplication must precede encryption. If the data is deduplicated either at the source or on the way to the target (inline) and encrypted before it is written to disk or tape (or sent to the cloud), then encryption and deduplication objectives can be met.

1. Investigate the data deduplication methodology of the proposed solution to make sure it is compatible with current encryption procedures, if any. For example, seek certification information on whether a backup vendor’s deduplication works with a target hardware provider’s target-side encryption.

2. Look to how the backup solution provider integrates its backup solution with other data management software such as data encryption. Having encryption and deduplication as part of an integrated solution will ensure the two play nice and may simplify management through a single console.

Problem

Recommendations

Solution

Info-Tech Research Group

Leverage retention and recovery obligations to argue for upgrading current backup software to meet new requirements while protecting past investment through backward compatibility.

Consider investing in a data archiving strategy. Archiving isn’t about saving everything, it’s about determining what can be safely disposed of and when. If everything is on old tapes, that may be a ticking liability time bomb.

Explore alternatives to maintenance of a legacy backup system. For example, a forensic audit service could supply the capability to retrieve old data from legacy media (tapes, disks) in the case of a legal requirement to do so. Two example providers are Iron Mountain and Altirium.

Recommendations

Ensuring future recovery capabilities for legacy backups is a major impediment to switching backup software

Recovery objectives serve business continuity goals, but they also serve legal and compliance goals for enterprise data. Availability of legacy backups can be a ball & chain

holding back change.

Dollar cost is not as big of [a] concern as the time cost to make the change, and maintain both systems to stay in compliance per regulations.

-CISO, Business Services

The overall problem with any transition is the cost of equipment and the issue about how to handle long term retention of data.

Data backup on one backup software cannot be migrated from one software to another.

Usually a costly restore to a system has to be performed followed by a backup.

-IT Manager, Healthcare

For us, the main reason not to switch is compliance. We are required to retain data for 7-10 years and some are 30+ years.

To switch vendors then we would need to keep our old software environment up for restores so why manage two different solutions and have costs associated with both. -Network Admin, Financial

43

“

“

The cost to maintain two backup systems, one for the new backup software and one to ensure recoverability of old backups to meet legal and regulatory compliance, is an often cited reason for those not switching solutions.

Clearly establish RPOs & RTOs of legacy backup data. The cost of any solution’s continuance is the cost of meeting these objectives. The degree of this problem is driven by the legacy data availability and recovery objectives of the organization. Organizations with long mandated retention periods and rapid recovery time objectives find this aspect particularly challenging.

Problem

Solution

Conclusions

• Evaluate your current backup software at least once per year to ensure enterprise backup meets recovery and availability requirements.

• Consider the benefits that new technology can bring as your environment becomes more virtualized and storage capacity requirements increase.

• However, remember that restore reigns supreme. Carefully consider the benefits of new features against availability and recovery requirements.

• CommVault and Symantec lead the pack, but for different reasons. CommVault offers ease of use and management through automated scripting, broad media support, and exceptional service.

• Symantec offers solutions created by an army of developers and is accessible to the little guy, with easy implementation and management through packaged appliances.

• That said, complexity, size, existing infrastructure, and recovery objectives should be the primary indicators of a best-fit solution.

• Backup has to fit into the overall data strategy. Look at the big picture before making a final decision to ensure all aspects are covered. Backup and restore functionality influences many areas of the infrastructure.

• Seize the opportunity that evaluating backup software brings to evaluate the ways in which you can leverage that software to improve ongoing data management.

Understand & Strategize

Evaluate Implement

Appendix A: Survey Demographics

Industry

Revenue

Job Title

Current Situation

Appendix B: Aggregate Measures

Enterprise Backup Success

Enterprise Backup Success was calculated as an aggregate of respondents’ ratings of their success in the following:

•My organization can restore data within target RTOs/RPOs.•My organization can restore data with Restore Granularity Objectives (RGOs).•My organization’s mission critical data is completely secure.•My IT group monitors and reports on its backup environment at least monthly.•My organization leverages the complete feature set and functionality of our backup software.•Our TCO per TB per year for our backup software is within an acceptable range.


Enterprise Backup Software Satisfaction

Enterprise Backup Software Satisfaction was calculated as an aggregate of respondents’ ratings of their satisfaction with the following features of their backup software (if used/available):

•Overall Cost•Ease of Use•Ongoing Support•Recovery Granularity•Broad Media Support (i.e. tape & disk)•Meeting Application-Specific Requirements (e.g. SharePoint, SQL, Exchange)•Virtual Machine Backup Options & Functionality•Deduplication Features & Functionality•Completeness of Public Cloud Backup Options



Info-Tech Vendor Landscape Methodology

Info-Tech Research Group’s Vendor Landscape market evaluations are part of a larger product selection solution set, referred to as a “Select Set.” The Vendor Landscape evaluation process starts with a customer survey. Customers tell us which vendors and products they have heard of and which ones they use, plan to use, or are investigating.

From these survey results and the domain experience of our analysts, a vendor/product shortlist is established. Product briefings are requested from each of these vendors, asking for information on the company, products, technology, customers, partners, sales models, and pricing.

Our analysts score each vendor and product across a variety of categories. These scores are then weighted according to weighting factors our analysts believe represent the weight that an average client should apply to each criteria. The weighted scores are then averaged for each of two high level categories: vendor score and product score. A plot of these two resulting scores is generated to place vendors in one of five categories: Champion, Competitor, Emerging Player, Innovator, and Industry Standard (see below).Category Rating Definition

Champion Champions receive high scores for most evaluation criteria and offer excellent value. They have a strong market presence and are usually the trend setters for the industry.

Competitor Competitors strike a strong balance between product and vendor attributes. They have the potential to become future industry leaders if they address the missing links in their product offerings.

Emerging Player Emerging players are newer vendors who are starting to gain a foothold in the marketplace. They balance product and vendor attributes, though score lower relative to market Champions.

Innovator Innovators have demonstrated innovative product strengths that act as their competitive advantage in appealing to niche segments of the market.

Industry Standard

Industry standard vendors are well established players with very strong vendor credentials, but with more average product scores.


Info-Tech Vendor Landscape Methodology (continued)

We then take the individual scores for each vendor/product in each evaluation category and normalize them to a scale of 0 to 4. This produces a relative scoring, where a low score value indicates low performance in that category relative to the performance of the other products in that category and vice versa for a high score. These normalized scores are represented with “Harvey Balls,” ranging from an open circle for a score of zero and a filled circle for a score of 4. Harvey Ball scores do not represent absolute scores, only relative scores.

Individual scorecards are then sent to the vendors for factual review and to ensure no information is under embargo. We will make corrections where factual errors exist (e.g. pricing, features, technical specifications). We will consider suggestions concerning benefits, functional quality, value, etc.; however, these suggestions must be validated by feedback from our customers. We do not accept changes that are not corroborated by actual client experience or wording changes that are purely part of a vendor’s market messaging or positioning. Any resulting changes to final scores are then made as needed, before publishing the results to Info-Tech clients.

Vendor Landscapes are refreshed every 12 to 24 months, depending upon the dynamics of each individual market.

select enterprise backup software

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