1. Practical IT Research that Drives Measurable Results Vendor Landscape Plus: Enterprise Backup Software Meet recovery objectives while addressing modern challenges

2. 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. 2 Info-Tech Research Group

3. Executive Summary Info-Tech Research Group3 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.

4. Evaluate Implement Understand & 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

5. 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. Info-Tech Research Group5 “ 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

6. 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 Info-Tech Research Group6 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 ”

7. “ 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 strategy Tape 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 7 Info-Tech Research Group

8. 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. Info-Tech Research Group8 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%

9. 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. Very Broad Very Limited High Low Difficulty Meeting Objective Breadth of Media Support Meeting RPOs/RTOs/RGOs Backing Up Virtual Machines Controlling Impact on Storage/Network Source: Info-Tech Research Group N=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. 9Info-Tech Research Group

10. 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

11. 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 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 Network 10 Gb 11Info-Tech Research Group

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