Data center disaster recovery planning

Results of Symantec SMB disaster recovery survey suggest upside for channel

The good news is that you have a lot of prospects in small-business disaster recovery solutions, according to a recent survey by Symantec. The bad news is that most of your prospective customers don’t understand just unprepared they are, so your sales cycle isn’t likely to be easy. Continued »

DR testing: Adding value

At the recent Storage Decisions event in San Francisco, I had the pleasure of sitting through Jon Toigo’s presentation on disaster recovery testing. The first stat that jumped out at me during the presentation was how little DR plans are actually tested. According to Jon’s research, more than 50% of companies don’t adequately test their plan; that leads me to ask, Does the channel have a role in DR testing?

The answer to that question is yes; in fact, there are multiple ways to help customers with their DR plan. Continued »

The low-down from Honolulu: Cisco’s collaboration bent

I’d be remiss if I didn’t report in this week from the Cisco Partner Summit, where I’m helping the company’s Industry Solutions Partner Network team with some breakout panels and communications activities.

The themes I’m about to recount were plucked from the main keynote address hosted by Worldwide Channel Muckety-Muck Keith Goodwin and featuring Goodwin’s ultimate boss, Cisco CEO and Chairman John Chambers. For those of you who aren’t/weren’t here, some highlights:

1. Partner to Partner Collaboration: This topic gets a big-time boost with the introduction of something called the Cisco Partner Exchange. Basically, this is a social network where approximately 8,500 Cisco Certified Partners, managed services providers, distributors and application partners can search for other partners that might be able to extend their reach on a particular project. Cisco is backing up this introduction with a channel survey it conducted with Illuminas Research that found collaborative projects between Cisco partners accounted for approximately 31 percent of revenue within the partner ecosystem. Another very compelling case for collaboration: 78 percent of the resellers who responded to the survey (about 500 in call) reported that collaboration helped them increase deal/project sizes. Partner Exchange is meant to support collaboration in cyberspace by letting partners create skills profiles that include not only info about their Cisco specializations but about other technologies they might support.

2. Data Centers: Cisco is upping the ante with both a new set of Nexus switches (developed by Nuova Systems) as well as incentives for VARs investing in a data center practice.

The Nexus 5000 Series are meant for consolidation projects. It supports 10 Gigabit Ethernet PLUS Fibre Channel over Ethernet Data Center Ethernet and virtualization. The new switches are supposed to start shipping in May starting at $36,000 for a fixed configuration, 40-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch. Cisco also evolved its Value Incentive Program and will start rewarding VARs that invest in a data center practice starting in August.

3. Software: This one is a bit of a surprise, given how other vendors are supporting and selling their software as a service (Saas) offerings. That is, by selling them direct. But, Keith Goodwin says Cisco is creating a referral program for its WebEx offerings that will not only reward partners for the initial deal but for recurring activity on the service. You can expect this program to emerge in the next two to three quarters. What’s more, WebEx will continue to morph to allow for more and more different types of connections (and collaborative settings) that are independent of device. Hmmm. Is Cisco becoming a software company?

John Chambers was his usual prophetic, evangelistic self, focusing on developments that are drivin where he is asking Cisco to place its bets. The company now has 22 priorities, which range from very broad initiatives such as mobility to very specific ideas, such as “routers in space.” Talk about an emerging market! Collaboration and Community are the two big themes underlying most of Chambers’ thinking. Focus on markets in transition, Chambers advises partners, if you want to increase revenues. “If you focus on your competition, you are already behind,” he said.

I buy most of this, certainly, but the one thing that niggles at me as I write this is the big push that Cisco is putting on collaboration through tools such as social networks, video conferencing, instant chats and so forth. It’s not that I don’t believe this is the way to go, it’s just that I think many people are overwhelmed about how to handle many of these services – many of which currently reside in different silos. I believe in the power of the individuals, but collaboration in chaos could actually result in a decrease in productivity. My two cents.

More later this week from (poor me) Hawaii.

Remote backup vendor adds support for VMWare

Data backup vendor eVault announced today a plugin that will let customers back up virtualized servers running on VMWare.

EVault’s backup — which is available as on-site software, software as a service (SaaS) or a managed service through eVault or one of its resellers — already works on individual instances of virtual servers, but the plugin will consolidate that process and allow backup of the virtual machines’ metadata, said the company’s senior product manager Patrick Dowlaszewicz. This will allow the virtual machines themselves — and not just the data they host — to be backed up.

About half of eVault’s business is conducted through resellers, and the company intends to grow that segment, said Dana Loof, eVault’s vice president of marketing. Evault, based in Emeryville, Calif., was recently acquired by Seagate Technologies, which Loof said is “a primarily channel [oriented] company.”

Loof admitted that virtualization has been slower than many of eVault’s resellers would like, but she said the new plugin will allow for cross-selling opportunities for those resellers to suggest migrating customers to virtual environments.

Most customers don’t know to ask specifically for virtual machine backups, but walking them through specific scenarios helps them see exactly what they would use virtual machine recovery for, said Dan Holt, CEO of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based HEIT Consulting.

“You come in as a full solution, instead of saying, ‘I have this point product and this point product.’ I’m coming in from a disaster recovery perspective,” he said.

The plugin itself is simple to install, so companies shouldn’t expect it to add much to their bottom lines directly. But for HEIT, which offers managed services, network design, security and other services, eVault and the new VMWare addition are “just portion of the pie” that will help HEIT expand its portfolio, Holt said.

EMC’s new products target backup and recovery market

EMC Corporation has a whole new set of hardware and software to sell to customers including the introduction of the EMC Disk Library 6000 series, which was unveiled today at EMC World in Orlando, Fla.  For large data centers, the DL 6000 consists of the DL6100 and the DL6300 and gives users the ability to store up to 1.8 petabytes of capacity and can backup more than 11 terabytes of data per hour.  The DL 6000 is based on EMC’s DMX-3 storage platform, which allows customers to use tiered storage within the array.  The DL6000 costs $1 million, and will be sold primarily through EMC’s direct sales representatives.

There was something, however, for authorized resellers servicing  small and medium size businesses (SMBs) including the Avamar data deduplication software version 3.7, an upgrade that now comes with VMware integration for customers who are consolidating their storage through virtualization projects and need a tool to eliminate information redundancy. “Customers can now reduce virtual machine backup times by up to 90%,” said David Donatelli, EMC’s executive vice president, storage product operations. The company has also designed Avamar to integrate with more EMC products such as the Celerra network attached storage (NAS) systems.

The EMC HomeBase, a new software tool that provides bare metal recovery of servers was also introduced today.  HomeBase works with EMC’s backup and recovery software NetWorker, as well as VMware and Avamar.  NetWorker also received a refresh and now supports more native languages for multinational customers like those in the Asia Pacific region. 

Finally, a new version of EMC RecoverPoint software for continuous remote replication was also announced.  Now RecoverPoint supports Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) a tool that manages backup and restore functions for Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SQL Server.  

Enterprise tools

Two interesting new tools for the enterprise are getting some press today. Big Blue’s OmniFind Yahoo edition enterprise search tool allows companies to search their stored information. From the sound of it, it seems like companies will be able to search their data portfolios to track down stored information. Not a bad idea for storage VARs who specialize in compliance to take a look at this. Instead of having to search file by file for old information that wasn’t properly tagged and archived, the tool allows for customizable searches that will reduce time spent tracking down information and allow VARs to devote more time to meeting regulatory compliance rules.

The other tool that caught my eye is a loss calculator that estimates the cost of lost data in an enterprise. This could be another useful tool for VARs who are trying to a professional service contract locking down data. Imagine the power of being able to put a dollar and cent value to a data breach. Seems like it could be a powerful sales tool.

-Brian

CDP and open source storage — future of the VAR

Storage continues to be a hot topic among VARs, customers and the tech world in general. One area that’s had the magnifying glass help up to it is continuous data protection (CDP). The debate among experts is: which is better — true CDP or near CDP? True CDP offers a granular level of information management that allows for the storage “tape” to be rolled back to any point in time. This way, if any data is lost, true CDP has already captured it and can restore it. You may know a consumer product with similar capabilities: TiVO. Near CDP is basically taking a snapshot of a database on a predefined schedule — say, every ten minutes.

Still not clear on CDP? Get the low down on everything VARs need to know about CDP with our guide, Delivering continuous data protection services.

If you already use the technology, you should look at this article on the CDP debate by Jo Maitland on SearchStorage.com. That debate may be moot if Mendocino can carry through with the promises that it is making.

One other piece of storage news of note: Open-source storage? This is one story that all storage VARs should be following. The opportunity to provide a storage service in an inexpensive, affective manner is astounding — not to mention that in addition to providing a valuable service, the opportunities for reoccurring revenue make the head spin.

Another reason for disaster recovery plans

When I hear technology media and PR folks discuss the Avian flu and disaster recovery, I chalk it up to FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) tactics. However, the findings of a survey conducted by Forsythe Solutions Group points to a larger issue. Of the more than 75 senior IT and business continuity pros at Fortune 1,000 and other major US companies surveyed, only 35% are prepared to deploy more than 10% of their workforce remotely. Obviously, this would be a problem in the case of a national health crisis. But a severe natural disaster could also make telecommuting a necessity. And while we as a nation (fortunately) have not recently witnessed a pandemic event, we have seen what a terrorist attack and natural disasters can do to our businesses. So chalk the Avian flu up to one – of many – reasons companies still need to implement a disaster recovery plan.

VoIP not just for SMBs

VoIP is often touted for its benefits to SMBs, but a SearchNetworking.com article reports that enterprises are also showing interest:

According to Yankee Group, more than 50% of enterprise respondents in a recent survey called “The Hosted Opportunity” said they believe a hosted VoIP environment would meet their needs in the areas of lower capital costs, remote access, multi-site networks, technology refresh and scalability. Slightly less (more than 40%) weighed in with security, lower cost of refresh, control and manageability as reasons that a hosted solution better meets their needs.

This bodes well for the channel, especially as customers big and small recognize how outsourced VoIP can be customized to fit their specific needs and the role it can play in disaster recovery. The article goes on to describe how Verizon Business equipped two customers whose telephony needs were met by VoIP’s flexibility and simplicity.

Disaster Preparedness for SMBs: Plan B for $150

With Eduardo starting to puff its way toward Florida, Orlando-based Vlad Mazek, the CTO of managed infrastructure service provider Own Web Now Inc., has come up with a quick-and-dirty disaster recovery plan that can be executed in under an hour for $150. The key elements: a prepaid cell phone, a Skype Dialin voice mailbox, an analog phone (for the “ride-it-out warrior”, says Mazek), and a disaster blog for coordination of staff.

After my experience with a no-warning loss of all Internet connectivity a few years ago, I can add the following things to that list: