Symantec has announced the latest version of its NetBackup solution, bringing new functionality to protect the largest scale VMware-based environments as enterprises move to a software-defined data centre architecture.
NetBackup 7.6 is the only backup product designed for enterprise level scale, which can accommodate hundreds of thousands of virtual machines and petabytes of data while giving customers 400x faster virtual machine recovery than a standard restore.
IT organisations can now simplify and automate the protection of massive and complex physical, virtual and cloud environments that are the building blocks of a modern data centre.
Today’s IT leaders are modernising their data centres in response to the need for more agile, scalable and heterogeneous computing. At the same time, data is growing at 60% to 70% yearly, according to Symantec’s State of Information Report.
This growth, combined with the proliferation of virtualisation and flat or declining budgets, is forcing CIOs to address the new reality where traditional protection models are inadequate. Modern enterprise solutions must provide faster and automated application protection, give insight into large, complicated virtual environments and provide the foundation for partners and service providers to deliver backup as a service.
NetBackup 7.6 delivers these benefits so that enterprise organisations can ensure a modern software-defined and fully protected data centre.
400x faster recovery of VMware vSphere virtual machines by booting directly from backup storage, compared to the hours or days that could be required for a traditional restore.
The solution’s NetBackup Instant Recovery for VMware environments allows customers to increase productivity and performance by powering on virtual machines from within NetBackup, making them 100% available in vSphere during the restore.
NetBackup Accelerator for VMware eliminates the need for full backups by leveraging integration with VMware Changed Block Tracking. The result is a complete, automated backup that is 35 times faster than traditional approaches, allowing customers to increase performance without compromising budget.
Customers can protect 300 virtual machines in 300 seconds, proactively backing up and recovering data with NetBackup Replication Director for VMware by leveraging NetApp array-based snapshots to protect virtual environments without giving up recoverability.
Additional features include multi-tenant hosting options for channel partners and managed service providers to improve scalability; and automated disaster recovery from a physical to a cloud platform to ensure data is always protected and available.
“As organisations continue to realise the benefits of the software-defined data centre, we are pleased to work with Symantec to empower customers to protect their IT infrastructure. Symantec’s data centre, with NetBackup 7.6 and VMware vCloud Suite, is a strong example of a transformative software-defined data centre,” says Sanjay Katyal, vice president, Global Alliances & OEMs, VMware.
“Data growth, complications from virtual machine sprawl and stagnant IT budgets have increased demand for backup solutions that protect, automate and efficiently manage data centre environments. Symantec and NetApp have a long history of partnering to deliver innovative solutions that solve these pressing data management challenges.
“The combined strengths of NetApp storage and Symantec NetBackup software enable customers to improve data protection service levels and reduce operational costs. NetApp looks forward to future collaboration to extend integration and provide enhancements for the benefit of our joint customers,” says Edward Sharp, VP of Integrated Data Protection, NetApp.
“A recent study from ESG found that improving backup and recovery, increasing server virtualisation, and managing data growth will remain some of the most important priorities for IT. In addition, ESG continues to see ‘tolerance to downtime’ shrinking, the sheer numbers of VMs per environment growing and the increasing use of snapshots in combination with (and managed by) backup systems to achieve the protection and recovery-agility that customers need.
“ESG performed hands-on testing of NetBackup 7.6 for VMware to test Symantec’s ability to meet those customer demands – and found NetBackup to exceed expectations. This combination of NetBackup 7.6 and VMware appears ready to deliver the protect-ability that highly virtualised large enterprises are seeking,” says Jason Buffington, senior analyst for Data Protection at Enterprise Strategy Group.
