Independence day offers greater data protection focus

Q It’s been a year since Arcserve ‘gained its independence’ from

CA – how does this feel?!

A Empowering! Since becoming independent from CA, we’ve been able to intensify our commitment and investment to directly impact the speed and determination with which we bring innovative Arcserve data protection products to the market. For example the recent launch of our new Arcserve UDP Appliance, which only took us four months from decision to general availability. Our greater focus means higher levels of service and customer satisfaction.

Q In more detail, what were the drivers behind Arcserve becoming
a standalone company?

A Our previous owner’s business and channel model were not exactly aligned with our main markets and our business. We’re 100 percent channel focused, and target SMBs and mid- market organisations. In contrast, CA is focused on the enterprise. Clearly, these markets have different requirements, and becoming independent means we’re freer to provide our customers with the data protection solutions they need. Also, CA’s strategic focus had shifted over the years, and it just made sense for us to find a new sponsor who would allow us to optimise our investments in our products, channel and end-users.

Q How have these advantages manifested themselves in terms of
the progress you’ve made since last August?

A We’re executing at lighting fast start-up speed, but with the maturity of an organisation that has been in this market for many years. The commitment, investment and focus I’ve mentioned directly translate into an aggressive growth plan completed with several key strategic initiatives. In other words, we have been and continue to be an “execution engine”: we get things done.

In less than a year, we’ve launched our successful unified platform Arcserve UDP, which has already been adopted by 9,000 customers. We’ve completed a major update to UDP in November. We launched an appliance based on UDP in February. We’ve signed an exclusive distribution relationship with Ingram Micro in North America. And we’re just about to announce a new Partner Programme.

Q What more has to be done before Arcserve is fully up and
running as an independent company?

A We have been technically independent since 1st August last year, but you can’t just “flick a switch.” In essence, everyone on the Arcserve team operationally started reporting in to the independent Arcserve on day one. Over the following months, employees were “officially” transferred to Arcserve’s systems and a new infrastructure was deployed. This was done on the basis of local regulatory and statutory requirements, and also with our partners and end-users in mind. We made sure that there was no or very minimal disruption to client and partner satisfaction.

Q What’s on the Arcserve roadmap over the coming months –
acquisitions, organic growth, new products...?

A Our products and solutions portfolio is going to evolve as we keep adding capabilities to our platform. We are looking at innovative ways to add value to our offering, and as we have demonstrated with the appliance, we certainly have “organic” paths to growth. We are also looking at non-organic growth acquisition opportunities.

Q Most obviously, you’ve just announced a UDP Appliance. Can
you tell us the thinking behind this launch?

A The launch of the UDP Appliance was a natural next step for our platform. It represented a market opportunity that was well suited for our technology and our channel globally – and it suited
our customers too. Our end-users want to consume modern technology in multiple ways – sometimes combined – including traditional software deployment, appliance and service/cloud. And UDP Appliance makes this possible – a complete, self-contained and cost effective appliance architected with cloud-native capabilities that is easy to deploy and use. Its broad set of features includes global
source-based deduplication, multi-site replication, tape support, and automated data recovery capabilities.

Our customers get unmatched operational agility and efficiency, as well as simplified disaster recovery activities. That’s because our appliance is more than just software retro-fitted on hardware, as other vendors tend to do. It’s an integral part of UDP, which was designed from the beginning with the appliance model in mind.

Also, it is not just a backup appliance. It is a true data protection platform that meets modern customer requirements and combines traditionally siloed platforms into one (backup, de-duplication, failover and cloud). And because it can grow as our customers’ needs grow it’s perfect for the SMB market.

Q How do you think that this appliance
differentiates itself from others in the
market?

A It does stand out from the competition for a number of reasons. Firstly its advanced deduplication technology combines powerful target-based in-line global data deduplication with intelligent source- based data deduplication, significantly reducing backup time and the amount of disk storage required to retain recovery points for extended periods of time.
Its unique capabilities to convert backup images from physical to virtual mean cost-effective disaster recovery without compromising on capability. For example, Arcserve UDP can convert a vSphere backup to a Hyper-V Virtual Machine in just seconds.

And unlike other products, Arcserve UDP’s unified management console creates task-based data protection and availability plans. When combined, the plans form the organisation’s data protection and availability strategy. This is distinct from traditional data protection solutions, where administrators are forced to protect highly complex environments using disjointed and ever-growing lists of backup software often across multiple products or systems.

Q One or two of the analysts are suggesting that the traditional
backup appliance is being joined by both failover and gateway
appliances. Can you talk us through these differentiations?
A Modern high-availability (HA) or failover technology continuously streams application and data changes to a remote location. When disaster strikes, be it an earthquake, a power outage, or a bungled software install, failover to an up to-date copy of your system is automatic and instant. HA eliminates downtime and eliminates data loss. Gateway, and specifically cloud storage gateway, is usually defined as a service used to cater to connectivity between any information technology environment and cloud storage infrastructure, which is used for storage and replication. Gateway to the cloud is different than HA in that backup to a cloud environment isn’t usually continuous. Instead, it is incremental. Arcserve’s UDP appliance encompasses both failover/HA and gateway capabilities.

Q How do you see these three appliance markets developing
into the future?

A We see that there are in fact four markets in the ESG taxonomy: backup, deduplication, failover and cloud gateway. And we’re interested in the way that all four of these markets are developing. There are still opportunities for growth with respect to traditional backup. At Arcserve, we’ve taken advantage of those opportunities: tying our technology into global, source-based deduplication, which is a more modern and effective way to optimise storage, backup performance and operational efficiency.

With access to electronic data and business systems becoming more and more critical to business continuity, we clearly see tremendous upside and growth with the failover/disaster recovery market segment. That is why assured recovery is our mission, and specifically why High Availability software is so important. Working in conjunction with Windows, Linux and UNIX servers, Arcserve High Availability provides for continuous system, application and data availability for physical and virtual servers. This mitigates risk of lost sales and service if and when an outage or error occurs.

And finally, cloud-based backup: a growing market because of rapidly increasing data volumes and benefits such as scalability, lower cost and reduced downtime. Our appliance is by default a form of cloud gateway and we see hybrid data protection deployments (on premise and in the cloud) as natural evolution for many SMBs and mid-market customers. Stay tuned for official news regarding the Arcserve cloud solutions.

Q Can you provide us with an update on the UDP software
product itself?

A Arcserve UDP has been adopted by more than 9,000 customers to date. The product is continuously being refreshed. Specifically, we introduced a major update in November, which included a free workstation edition for endpoint protection and key new features to protect business-critical applications and hypervisors. We also launched UDP 7000, which is available in the UK, Ireland, Benelux and the Nordic region, with versions for the French and German-speaking markets to be added later this year. Key features, that enable SMB and mid-market customers to ‘set and forget’ their backup and recovery, include:
 Five models in three capacities to protect from 1 to up to 26TB of
source data
 Global deduplication, encryption, compression and WAN optimised
replication
 New UDP wizard to simplify setup and shorten time to first backup
to less than 15 minutes all in
 A powerful all-in-one appliance with a combination of SATA, SAS
and SSD drives for optimised performance
Beyond the software, the UDP appliance is poised for international expansion in the next few weeks as well as larger capacity models later this year.

Q Can you give us an update on the Backup product?

A Arcserve Backup is a file-based backup solution supporting both disk and tape. Specifically, it provides “enterprise-class” functionality, such as data deduplication, centralised management and granular restoration capabilities to protect information. We are planning an update for Arcserve Backup later this year.

Q And, the High Availability product?

A We are also planning an update to the High Availability product later this year. High Availability is designed to keep things simple and efficient. Customers can automate failover and failbacks, test BC/DR plans and migrate systems. Our strategy is to fully integrate the functionality of High Availability into UDP.

Q How do you see the Arcserve portfolio developing over time?

A We see our UDP platform evolving to address a broader set of data protection needs. This includes evolving the platform for reduced data loss and downtime and more consumption options for customers/partners: giving our customers even more assurance that their backup and recovery is taken care of, and that their Arcserve product will grow with them, providing the capacity and speeds that they need.

Q Arcserve offers solutions for a range of markets – including
backup/restore, BC/DR, virtual server protection, Cloud, remote
office, server migration and data reduction – what are the hot
topics right now?

A In the data protection space hot topics include:
 Shifting from backup to comprehensive data protection. Backup
is simply one form of data protection, but it isn’t the only form.
As data scales and infrastructure gets more complicated to support
that growing data, companies need to think about a holistic data
protection strategy, which includes archiving, backups, snapshots, replication, high availability disaster recovery and business
continuity.
 Simplification and optimisation through appliances and services.
As organisations scale, they implement diverse forms of storage:
physical, virtual and cloud. The more data a business has, the
more forms of storage they implement, making their environment
more complicated to manage. To manage these diverse
environments, organisations can look to point solutions, which are
not connected, or a unified solution in the form of an appliance.
The advantage of simplifying with a unified appliance is that your
hybrid environment is served with one solution, which is arguably
easier to manage than multiple point solutions.
 Designing and deploying hybrid data protection solutions.
Companies that require fast Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) need
a solution that gives them fast local recovery while at the same
time providing off-site protection. This is why designing and
deploying a hybrid solution – comprised of physical, virtual and
cloud-based infrastructures are increasing in popularity.

Q Do you see any other technologies and/or business issues having an impact on Arcserve and its customers in the future?

A Operational efficiency and resilience are becoming more and more visible across the market. These have and will continue to drive decision making for IT leaders and their administrators.

Q What kind of a Channel did you bring with you from CA?

A Arcserve is a 100% channel company. Currently, we have approximately 7,500 partners, and are launching a new Partner Programme to optimise our reach. Just launched in North America and going global throughout 2015, this programme is not simply channel focused, it is channel built. It leverages extensive feedback via live conversations and surveys from the channel community and industry analysts.

As a result, it is designed to make it easy to do business with us while driving top-line and bottom-line results through lead generation assistance, accelerated deal transaction standards, and no cost technical and sales accreditation.
Q How are you looking to develop this?

See above, # 16.

Q How do you position Arcserve in the data protection space
right now?

A Arcserve strives to be the most modern and robust data protection solution in its target market, which spans from the SMB to the mid-market. We are easy to do business with among partners and easy to deploy and use among end users.

Q How do you want to see this change in the next 12-18 months?

As noted above, Arcserve will keep adding technology and consumption options to become the most comprehensive and easy to use data protection solution on the market.

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Increasing efficiency and agility for Cork City Council

CORK CITY COUNCIL has deployed Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP), the company’s new award-winning unified architecture solution, to protect data in its primarily virtual server environment while reducing storage capacity and improving operational efficiencies. Cork City Council implemented UDP in August 2014 and saw immediate and dramatic improvements to its data center.

Cork City Council provides a diverse range of services to the 150,000 citizens of Cork, the second city in the Republic of Ireland. Like many local authorities, Cork City Council must operate within the limits of the resources it is allocated while delivering reliable, modern and sustainable services to safeguard the city’s future prosperity. To maintain quality of service, 900 of the council’s employees must access critical information at all times; however, increasing data volumes and virtualization of its server environment were putting considerable limitations on capacity and data protection measures under pressure. The authority urgently needed to reduce the amount of capacity required for backups and was also looking to reduce recovery times to ensure the quality of public services.

The Challenge: Protection while Reducing Storage Capacity
The authority had been using a traditional tape backup method to protect its file storage and a small percentage of its virtual servers daily. Other virtual servers were cloned monthly with a copy saved to the council’s storage area network (SAN). Already requiring 2TB of storage, these clones were causing the SAN to be at capacity.

“We needed a way to protect our environment while freeing up space, and a comprehensive and scalable backup and recovery solution that would allow us to stop creating the clones and ensure timely recovery of data across our hybrid physical and virtual environment without an additional investment in storage capacity.” – Nora Smiddy, IS Operations, Cork City Council
Arcserve UDP: Protection for 55 Virtual and 5 Physical Servers

To safeguard the growing volume of data and virtual servers across the organization, the council chose to complement its existing solution with Arcserve UDP, which is designed for incremental backups to disk.
Arcserve UDP protects Cork City Council’s data across 56 virtual VMware servers, including 10 Linux servers, and 5 physical Windows. 10TB of data is protected, including SQL Server databases, Microsoft Exchange mailboxes and a JD Edwards financial system. Deduplication means 1.1TB of daily incremental changes requires only 142GB of storage.

Arcserve UDP also runs daily incremental backups on the council’s most critical servers: 13 virtual servers and 5 physical servers. Less critical servers that do not change regularly – such as servers hosting network-monitoring applications – are backed up weekly or monthly.
The Results: 3.5TB Freed Storage Capacity and Improved Operational Efficiency
With Arcserve UDP, Cork City Council can now:

 Ensure continuous secure access to information:
Arcserve UDP’s easy-to-use interface
helps the authority recover data more
quickly and easily while seeing the
status of all backups at a glance within
a single screen.
 Optimize employee productivity:
UDP has allowed better use of the
council’s resources by allowing other
work to be dispersed across the team.
Time has been freed up, allowing the
team to take on new tasks that will
benefit the council and its users and
safeguard the quality of service for its
900 users and citizens.
 Reduce storage consumption and
costs:
The council has freed up 3.5TB of
storage capacity as well as IT time. It
now has the capacity to provision new
virtual servers and systems that improve
staff productivity and the delivery of
public services.

“We now have the space to provision new virtual servers and workloads,” explains Smiddy. “We can replace older virtual servers and legacy versions of applications with new, more efficient systems. We have already installed a new CRM system, improving end user productivity.”