Backup Software - Tape Library Combo Runs Counter to Current Disk-Based Backup Craze

One might think the data protection world has gone mad. After all of the coverage over the last few years about the "goodness" of disk and the "evils" of tape, a recent announcement from Spectra Logic that it had entered into a new OEM agreement with Symantec ran counter to this disk-based backup craze. What specifically caught my eye in this announcement was that Spectra Logic was now bundling solutions that would integrate Symantec's NetBackup and Backup Exec software solutions with either its disk or its tape library products.

One of the emerging trends in the data protection market is the growing availability of appliances that bundle backup software with disk. In that respect, a component of this press release reflects this broader trend as Spectra Logic can bundle Symantec's Backup Exec software with its nTier family of Classic and Deduplication VTL appliances.

The nTier Classic series of appliances are based on Microsoft Windows Storage Server, so Spectra Logic can install Backup Exec on an nTier appliance and provide customers with a single bundled solution that consists of backup software and disk. This is an obvious synergy between Spectra Logic and Symantec but it is similar to other announcements from Symantec where it has bundled its backup software with a hardware vendor's product.

But what caught me somewhat by surprise is that Spectra Logic is also bundling its tape libraries with Symantec's backup software. This I found a bit confusing. After all, if organizations already have backup software and are using tape, why would they find a tape library that includes backup software appealing?

To try to get some answers to that question, I spoke to Spectra Logic's Senior Product Manager, Kevin Dudak. He explained that among Spectra Logic's customer base there is still a lot of confusion around deduplication. Because deduplication comes in so many forms (target-based deduplication in appliances, source-based deduplication on clients and even deduplication that occurs on backup software media servers), many of its customers are still not ready to move forward with deduplication and bring it into their environment so they are sticking with tape for now.

This is where Spectra Logic encounters some difficulties. Many of its customers that continue to use tape are using older versions of Symantec's backup software with a larger percentage using older versions of Backup Exec. This can create problems when Spectra Logic goes to deploy a new tape library in the customer's environment. Since the customer has not upgraded the backup software or kept its support up-to-date, Backup Exec can not take advantage of some of the newer technology available on the new Spectra Logic tape library.

This is where the impetus behind bundling Symantec's Backup Exec backup software with Spectra Logic's tape library comes in. Rather than requiring the customer to make two separate purchases, do a Backup Exec software upgrade and then install the tape library, by purchasing both the backup software and the tape library from Spectra Logic (or from a Spectra Logic reseller), everything can be configured at once.

Combining these two purchases solves problems on a number of fronts. First, it simplifies life for both the customer and Spectra Logic. By buying everything from Spectra Logic, Spectra Logic's engineers can handle both the upgrade and/or installation of the backup software and the setup and configuration of the tape library.

Second, doing it this way helps to ensure that when the Spectra Logic engineer leaves the customer site, everything is operational and working. Dudak has already witnessed a circumstance where an engineer discovered that the customer had insufficient licenses for everything to work together as designed. Because the engineer was onsite and configuring Backup Exec and the tape library, he was able to pinpoint the problem and advise the client to obtain more licenses so the whole system ran more efficiently.

Backup to disk and deduplicating backup data are generating a lot of interest among end-users. But interest does not always translate into a decision to move ahead with deduplication and many are still keep both disk and tape as part of their backup infrastructure for now.

So as organizations familiarize themselves with how to use disk in general and deduplication specifically in their backup infrastructure, they are still opting to buy technologies that they know and trust. That's why new alliances such as this one between Spectra Logic and Symantec are so valuable. They provide organizations with an intermediate step to addresses their immediate needs around backup software and tape, it allows them to use tape to store their data for long term retention and offsite DR and it keeps their options open in regards to introducing deduplication into their environment at some point in the future.