As you may already know I have been talking quite a bit lately about the move from traditional data center computing to “the multi-cloud” – a combination of on-prem, public, hybrid, and multiple clouds to best address an organization’s workloads, use cases and user needs, and overall computing environment and application mix. As more companies continue on their move to the multi-cloud, the challenge of effectively managing their most precious commodity – their data – can seem especially vexing. Especially since, not only are there many clouds out there with which to potentially integrate your data center, there are almost as many types of clouds – “specialty” clouds for software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), monitoring-as-a-service (MaaS), communication-as-a-service (CaaS), desktop-as-a-service (DaaS), and just about anything else one might think of that could be a cloud-based service (XaaS). So as we move to the multi-cloud, how can an organization craft a pragmatic, right-paced approach with so many choices? That’s where Veritas comes in.
As you consider which workloads and data you may move to the multi-cloud and when, I strongly suggest you consider the following factors:
- Storage: Storage is moving to the cloud. Not all at once, and not for all workloads, but the move is in process and organizations are learning how to take full advantage of the multi-cloud to store their data. And the preferred method is software-defined storage to minimize the cost of hardware if on-prem, and to optimize management and agility since data may be stored in any of a variety of ways and locations in the multi-cloud.
- Indexing and classification: You need to make sure you can establish and enforce policies based on use cases, organization structure, geo locations, job roles, and the type of data involved.
- Modern workloads: Your multi-cloud needs to support emerging web-scale and “big data” workloads that are ushering in a new era in terms of raw computing power needed, volume of data, and analytics.
- Convergence: Different workloads run best on different computing platforms. Some large databases may be best addressed via scale-out multi-node environments, whereas hyper-converged infrastructure might prove best for certain other workloads, especially those running in virtualized environments like virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).
- APIs: Increased complexity can be highly mitigated via policy-based programmatic integration and resulting actions. Look to support standard intra- and inter-cloud processing and storage interfaces to keep things automated and smart, yet simple at the same time.
This week at our annual Veritas Vision user and partner conference, we are announcing a number of exciting new capabilities designed to ease and accelerate multi-cloud computing adoption, while taking the five key factors above into consideration.
From a cloud storage standpoint, as more data moves to the multi-cloud, it’s imperative that organizations look to optimize performance without over-paying for storage. NetBackup CloudCatalyst, a new feature of NetBackup 8.1 available in either an appliance or as software, sets a new benchmark in performance and efficiency in protecting data in the cloud. By achieving exceptionally high dedupe reduction rates, NetBackup CloudCatalyst can backup data to the cloud up to three times faster than alternative methods while vastly reducing the amount of storage needed in the cloud, which results in significant OPEX cost savings over time.
Per insight and classification, we have announced a new version of Veritas Information Map, which will allow even greater characterization of data, including 23 new data sources for both on-prem and cloud-based data storage repositories. Information Map enables customers to see what data they have across a wide array of environments, enabling better decisions about what data to retain, migrate or delete to save even more money. It can also help ensure compliance with data regulations around the world, such as HIPAA and the European Union’s forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). And from a user experience perspective, Information Map’s new Connection Center interface makes it super-easy to manage all of your various cloud and data connectors.
Let me talk for a bit about modern workloads. A new capability in NetBackup 8.1 is its ability to protect modern web-scale and big data workloads like Hadoop and NoSQL that generate massive amounts of data. With the new Veritas Parallel Streaming technology, these modern scale-out workloads can be backed up and protected with extreme efficiency by leveraging the power of multiple nodes simultaneously. The result is that organizations can now adopt these modern workloads with confidence, knowing that their data, even in massive volumes, will be protected. And since new workloads can be added via a plug-in rather than a software agent, organizations can add new workloads without having to wait for a next NetBackup software release. NetBackup Parallel Streaming also supports workloads running on hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) from Nutanix, as Nutanix and Veritas have partnered to certify protection of those workloads on HCI.
Finally, we are also announcing a new NetBackup appliance – the Veritas 5340 – that represents our next upward step-function in performance and capacity. With 40% greater capacity of over 1.9 petabytes and a significant performance boost over its predecessor, the 5340 serves as a great integrated appliance for those who prefer a highly scalable appliance based approach to protecting their data. It also includes an “active-active” high availability (HA) configuration option that brings planned and unplanned downtime close to zero. Easy to purchase, deploy, and operate, the 5340 is our next-generation appliance platform and it’s coming soon.
As you can see, we’ve been very busy at Veritas bringing to market new products, and exciting new capabilities to our bellwether NetBackup software, that offer multiple best-in-class capabilities to allow organizations to take full advantage of the evolving multi-cloud data center. And we’re not slowing down. I look forward to my next communication to share with you even more detail on what we’re doing in the areas of multi-cloud data protection, data insight and control, and software-defined storage.
