|
Forrester evaluated 12 virtual tape library (VTL) vendors across 58 criteria and found that FalconStor Software leads for the completeness of its product offering and strategy. Fujitsu Siemens Computers leads for its host support, architecture, and tape integration. First-to-market EMC continues to have a very competitive VTL. Quantum shows substantial promise with a VTL that supports both pre- and post-processing deduplication. NetApp has one of the strongest product strategies as it transforms itself into a heterogeneous data protection vendor. Sun Microsystems and COPAN Systems have created unique offerings with partner software and their own intellectual property. SEPATON leads pure-plays with the most complete offering. HP and IBM have improved VTL offerings but lack market traction. Deduplication pioneers Data Domain and Diligent don’t integrate with tape but show promise with customers that want tape elimination.
THE PROBLEM: BACK UP MORE DATA, MORE OFTEN, IN LESS TIME, WITH THE SAME BUDGET
It’s often assumed that enterprises are transitioning more and more of their backups to disk because they’re simply frustrated with tape. Tape is slower than disk, it’s prone to more errors and failures, and it is difficult to manage hundreds — and potentially thousands — of individual tape cartridges. The reality is that enterprises aren’t frustrated with tape. Many of its inherent challenges have been addressed through more intelligent automated tape library systems. They simply can’t back up all the critical corporate data they need to with tape alone because: 1) There is more data to back up than ever before; 2) there is less planned downtime during which to complete backups; 3) application owners want more frequent backups and faster restores; and 4) IT operations must improve backup and restore service with its existing budget.
VTLs Improve Backup And Help Control Costs
Virtual tape libraries are disk subsystems that use tape emulation to appear as physical tape libraries and tape drives to backup and other software.1 Why is it beneficial to trick your backup application into thinking that it’s still backing up to tape when in fact it’s backing up to disk? It’s because VTLs: · Provide non-disruptive introduction of disk into existing backup operations. Because the VTL appears as physical tape libraries and tape drives to the backup software, IT operations can introduce the VTL with minimal disruption to existing backup jobs and schedules. So, if you are a large enterprise that has potentially hundreds of backup jobs that an administrator configured to work with a particular tape library and a specified number of drives within that library, you do not have to modify all of those jobs to accommodate the VTL. If the backup jobs rely on 16 linear tape-open (LTO) drives, simply define 16 virtual LTO drives within the VTL.
· Offer flexibility without complex disk administration. The VTL masks the complexity of disk administration. An administrator can add additional virtual tape drives at any time to increase the number of concurrent backup streams to the VTL or to provide host or separate backup applications with their own dedicated resources.
· Maximize your existing investment with physical tape. While most large enterprises have a significant investment in tape, they are looking to introduce new technology that can help achieve better backup and restore performance. However, they still want to integrate tape. Many VTLs offer the ability to create physical tape directly from the VTL as well as the ability to increase tape media utilization through better compression and techniques such as tape stacking.
· Lower the total cost of ownership of disk. All of the VTLs in this study offer compression and either already offer deduplication or will offer deduplication within two quarters. These techniques help improve disk capacity utilization and lower capital expenditures on disk. It will also help some enterprises store more data longer on disk before it’s vaulted to tape.
|
