The Veritas Barometer Indicates Hybrid Clouds Ahead
Cloud, cloud and more cloud. TheIT world isadopting new infrastructure and service delivery models that cut costs anddeployment times while increasingservice reliability. But this latest in disruptive technologies is creating a real headache for data protection architects and their administration teams.It’s Time to Design Protection for the Future, Today
Organisations throughout EMEA often view backup and recovery as a necessity; they do not appear to support productivity, drive growth or increase profitability. This perception is understandable given the number of products in the marketplace that simply address backup and recovery alone. Narrow capabilities that do not even cater to all areas of the infrastructure have a tendency to worsen complexity and increase costs rather than the opposite outcome that IT teams strive for. This narrow set of capabilities is also detrimental to the wider IT infrastructure as businesses look to modernize infrastructure and make better use of their information. Industry analysts support the premise that three information challenges drive technology decisions[1]: Extending virtual and cloud Keeping pace with data growth Reducing cost and complexity The broad set of capabilities delivered in Backup Exec 15 brings value to business beyond recovery of information. Supporting and enabling the extension of IT infrastructure ever-further into the latest technology leverages the benefits that virtual and cloud infrastructures bring. Making use of this single touch point to manage the increasing volumes of data and the recovery demands imposed not only helps IT to make the best decisions but also to put more into productive, innovative activities. It’s Time for backup and recovery that drives your business. It’s Time for Backup Exec 15. Join the conversation #ItsTimeForBE15 Check back next Tuesday or subscribe for part 2 of 5 @barnabywood [1] ESG, Research Report: 2014 IT Spending Intentions Survey, February 2014 IDC, Unified Data Protection for Physical and Virtual Environments, January 2014It’s Time to Extend Your Virtual and Cloud Infrastructures
Well understood as drivers of change in IT departments throughout EMEA with an adoption rate for server virtualization of 79% and cloud adoption of 56%[1] these two continue to proliferate messages of cost benefits and simplification. Perhaps we consider cloud as ‘virtual that somebody else does for me’ and gain a better understanding of the nature of where information is stored. Whilst the adoption of public cloud storage for backup in EMEA remains well behind adoption of web hosting, email hosting, content filtering and productivity solutions it does demand a new level of flexibility in planning information protection for both the short and longer term futures. We find ourselves moving rapidly from static, largely on-premise, physical infrastructures that are designed and built to last for a number of years, to infrastructures which are specifically designed to account for and embrace change across a wide variety of platforms, technologies and delivery mechanisms: physical, virtual and cloud. IT infrastructure is no longer built to last, but built to change across a combination of virtual, physical and cloud. You can take confidence in Backup Exec 15’s breadth and depth of integrated capabilities and have the flexibility to make business-centric decisions for IT, safe in the knowledge that information is protected and recoverable whatever your platform or technology. It’s Time for backup and recovery that enables choice. It’s Time for Backup Exec 15. Join the conversation #ItsTimeForBE15 [1] Spiceworks “State of IT” Report, January 2015Free T-Shirts and Technical Stuff
As I've struggled my way through this last week on jet lag, limited sleep and caffeine at Symantec's Worldwide Sales and Marketing Conference, two things have struck me. The first is that Backup Exec has a special place in a lot of peoples' hearts. Its roots can be traced back around 30 years and there is a very real passion - among the sales force and pre-sales groups in Symantec, within the channel partner community and among our customers too. We brought themed "Backup Exec Boot Camp" t-shirts and hats to the conference as prizes and throughout the week more and more employees and partners were wearing them - through their own choice. Supporters if you like, but certainly a very loyal following that’s prepared to shout about it from the rooftops. If you want to get one for yourself, look out for the regional Boot Camps we're going to be running around EMEA in the coming weeks and months. Travelling around EMEA, I meet partners who have built their businesses around Backup Exec and customers who have been using it for years and who are genuinely pleased to meet "a Backup Exec guy" like me. The second thing that struck me this week was that in spite of the breadth and depth of capabilities within Backup Exec there is also a real awareness gap around those capabilities. I see focused competitors going after the VMware space - there's loads of stuff talking about them as a one trick ponies; there's more still trying to translate reality from marketing hype. I'm not going to dive into that right now, although Sean Regan wrote an enlightening bloghttp://bit.ly/kYxIQzthat I'd recommend you read. We’re doing our own bit when it comes to virtualisation, backing up more VMWare hosts than anyone else in the market, through Backup Exec and also NetBackup.(IDC market data & Symantec unit bookings). Here's the thing though. You could argue all day about the number of companies running Backup Exec, but it's a lot - well into seven figures. Many of those have already invested in the VMware Agent for Backup Exec in the three or so years that it's been available, while others are running the Hyper-V Agent in the same sort of time. Hyper-V platform uptake seems to be picking up more and more as well. Despite this I still run into customers and partners who don't realise these agents exist. There are others too. Backup Exec and De-Duplication, for instance. Symantec System Recovery - there's another example of how Backup Exec goes so far beyond tape-based physical server backup and can solve real problems for real organisations. My suspicion is that it's the approach we take in talking about it all. I don't just limit that to Symantec. It's endemic in the industry. We tend to talk about technical stuff - we all do it. What does it do? How does it work? My phone lets me check my mail and make calls (most of the time). I don't care how it does it; it solves my challenge of communicating with customers, colleagues, family and friends. So what problems does Backup Exec solve? It's simple really - it makes life easier. Whatever the question, the answer is Backup Exec. If my business is building boats, Backup Exec helps me build more boats. It lets me spend less time doing backup and restore stuff, less money investing in hardware, less time worrying about the complex bits and more time and energy building boats. Isn't that what it's all about? Or is it about free t-shirts and technical stuff? And just to clarify, Symantec is #1 for VMware backup, t-shirt or not.http://bit.ly/lXcWi6You’re invited – NetBackup usability feedback sessions coming up!
We would love to invite you for the upcoming usability sessions where you will share your feedback and inputs with the product team. Your comments will be very important for the projects since you have a better understanding of the real scenarios we should be designing for. Here are more details on the activities: