Quantum, Cloud Storage and Disaster Recovery
Quantum just launched a "virtual deduplication appliance," the DXi V1000. The company reached out to me to explain its vmPRO technology, where this new device fits in its portfolio of storage-related products, and discussed how this technology was selected to be part of Xerox's cloud backup and recovery services.
What Quantum has to say
The story behind this story is Quantum's belief that cloud storage, whether supported by an on-premise private cloud or as part of a public cloud offering, is the future of both the backup function itself and disaster recovery for small and midmarket companies.The challenge, of course, is dealing with the large and growing amount of data these companies create and have to maintain. Quantum believes that cloud storage can be viable for backup and disaster recovery if it can help companies reduce the volume of data that has to be sent over the wire to some remote data center. Quantum, acting on that belief, is now offering technology that, in their words, provides the following capabilities:
- Fast restores delivered from local copies of virtual machines (VM) and their data
- Cost-effective DR and business continuity provided by the ability to bring up full VM images in the cloud
- The option to pursue a hybrid cloud approach, taking full advantage of Quantum vmPRO and DXi V1000 capabilities both onsite and in the cloud
- The ability for customers to use their preferred hardware, protecting prior investments and future flexibility
- Secure, multi-tenant cloud support
- Optimized data reduction of up to 95 percent
Snapshot analysis
Quantum appears to have addressed some, but certainly not all, of the cloud storage issues. By reducing the volume of data by as much as 95%, Quantum's vmPRO technology makes it possible for cloud storage can be considered for a number of tasks. This technology doesn't, however, directly address the need to control who can access this data, when and how the cloud service provider backs up the data on the host systems, or several other regulatory compliance challenges.Quite a number of start ups are trying to bring cloud storage into the IT infrastructure of the same target audience. Most are offering some form of deduplication, a distributed file system implementation as well as management functions for cloud storage. CTERA, Iceweb, Red Hat, Riverbed, Seagate's EVault, Storsimple, TwinStrata as well as most of the mainline storage suppliers, such as EMC and NetApp are offering products that, on the surface, appear quite similar in concept.
Quantum's products certainly are addressing the issue of data volume and making it more easily possible to deploy a cloud storage solution for backup and disaster recovery procedures. Is Quantum the right choice? Small and midmarket companies would be well advised to learn about offerings from several suppliers and compare what they do to their own requirements before making a selection.