First of all, I want to state that I am very impressed with the fact that Symantec is moving forward on a product that deduplicates data on either the media or client side depending on configuration. This is one of those demands that will assist all backup administrators and I.T. Departments with minimizing costs in a growing environment with miniscule backup windows. Concepts like this show the ingenuity of the developers and the technical users to perform feats against growing costs.
However, there are a few dissapointments that I have seen with Puredisk & Netbackup:
1. If you bought into the whole VTL libraries before any disk based backups were brought into play, you're screwed if you think you can move Puredisk into that environment to use. Unfortunately, you would have to break the entire VTL system (destroy its OS and applications), wipe out all the data, and set up a linux based system that would host those drives as additional disk paths. Obviously this was not the intent of the hardware and makes it a very dissapointing announcement to people who just a rediculous amount of money for a concept that would now be phased out in just one version with no support.
To Note, the Symantec employee below mentions that alot of vendors offer upgrades to Dedup VTL's, or that if you have certain agreement with distributors that you could possibly do an exchange for different hardware that puredisk would be compatible with.
2. PureDisk isn't a bundled licensing feature. Now i know that Symantec has to make money like any other company, and that generally they are willing to bend some licensing costs depending on your size, but it comes down to the fact that its another cost. I think you will get almost everyone leaving their current backup solution and moving to even a slightly more expensive version of Netbackup when Netbackup integrates that functionality into its own system.
3. (This item in particular has been struck out since a previous comment from Symantec has mentioned that its global deduplication and not a per client.)
But the good news is this - its a start. Sooner or later, concepts and issues will be brought out and resolved in the best manner: well, at least in the way that will show profit.
However, there are a few dissapointments that I have seen with Puredisk & Netbackup:
1. If you bought into the whole VTL libraries before any disk based backups were brought into play, you're screwed if you think you can move Puredisk into that environment to use. Unfortunately, you would have to break the entire VTL system (destroy its OS and applications), wipe out all the data, and set up a linux based system that would host those drives as additional disk paths. Obviously this was not the intent of the hardware and makes it a very dissapointing announcement to people who just a rediculous amount of money for a concept that would now be phased out in just one version with no support.
To Note, the Symantec employee below mentions that alot of vendors offer upgrades to Dedup VTL's, or that if you have certain agreement with distributors that you could possibly do an exchange for different hardware that puredisk would be compatible with.
2. PureDisk isn't a bundled licensing feature. Now i know that Symantec has to make money like any other company, and that generally they are willing to bend some licensing costs depending on your size, but it comes down to the fact that its another cost. I think you will get almost everyone leaving their current backup solution and moving to even a slightly more expensive version of Netbackup when Netbackup integrates that functionality into its own system.
3. (This item in particular has been struck out since a previous comment from Symantec has mentioned that its global deduplication and not a per client.)
But the good news is this - its a start. Sooner or later, concepts and issues will be brought out and resolved in the best manner: well, at least in the way that will show profit.
Published 16 years ago
Version 1.0