By: SeanJRegan

SeanJRegan — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:18:42 +0000

[CODE][/CODE]Dave,
Interesting post about the VM backup. It looks like toward the end of the article we see another vendor moving in the direction of one backup for all platforms. Long term I see a platform approach succeeding, even in fully virtual environments. Just like physical environments, there will likely be many different hypervisors. The best way forward is one product for any recovery, from any platform.

There are a few key aspects of Symantec’s commitment to the VM backup space that I should add to the discussion:

1.) Symantec has been focused on about VM backup since before 2006 when I joined. Since then we have won, or been a finalist in the Best of VMworld awards for Data Protection three times. Simply put, Symantec has won more Best of VMworld awards for Data Protection than any vendor.

2.) Starting at VMworld 2006 we led a session on “Non-disruptive Backup of VMware” and we also sent a large group of our engineers to Los Angeles to start work on support for VCB in NetBackup 6.5 resulting in the 2007 best of VMworld Gold Award for Data Protection. We have presented at every VMworld since then on the power of the VMware API’s for data protection. These are not sponsored sessions but rather technical sessions in concert with VMware.

3.) In 2006 the idea of granular file recovery for virtual machines was largely incomprehensible. In those days no one did this for virtual machines. With the support we developed for VCB in 6.5 we changed that. Our engineers took the unique technology that Symantec and Veritas developed for physical servers related to single file restore and then delivered patented integration so that VM teams could now perform granular file recovery as well. That was the beginning of V-Ray, a philosophy and embedded technology that drives our roadmap and product for VMware and Hyper-V.

4.) Stay tuned for BackupExec 2012, we have added some VMware- and Hyper-V specific technology and pricing and licensing that is sure the make an impact in the space. Today we have close to 2 million organizations using Symantec backup with about 50% of new sales for BackupExec being deployed on virtual machines.

In the end, I agree with Walter. In the backup, the only thing that matters is recovery and the best way to do that is a single platform whether physical, virtual, cloud, tape, disk, flash, whatever. Complexity is the enemy of recovery, anything vendors can do to make recovery simpler and easier is good for the industry.

Cheers,
Sean Regan
@seanjregan
Symantec

Comments on: Physical, virtual backup still mostly a two-headed beast

By: SeanJRegan