The role of backup and recovery has changed. In addition to ensuring organizations have at least one good copy of their data, IT must now make sure mission-critical applications and databases can be restored in accordance with service level agreements (SLAs). Problematically, traditional data protection software focuses on servers and infrastructure, with no visibility into whether SLAs can be achieved. Building on its 25-year heritage as an industry leader in the management of mission-critical applications and databases, Quest Software is redefining backup and recovery with the industry’s first services-centric data protection solution.
Quest Software today unveiled NetVault® Extended Architecture (XA), a new platform unifying its data protection technologies, and enabling organizations to align backup and recovery directly to their service continuity needs.
NetVault XA allows administrators to organize, schedule, view, and manage backups based on specific business and technology services. This gives them the ability to set specific recovery time and recovery point objectives for each, regardless of whether the servers, applications, and databases that power those services reside on- or off-premise, or in a physical or virtual environment, or a combination thereof.
In addition, NetVault XA enables IT to move beyond the single-pane-of-glass approach to backup by delivering a customized experience for administrators across multiple roles. Whereas most data protection solutions offer a flat, single-dimensional view intended solely for the generalist backup administrator, NetVault XA gives specialists such as DBAs, application administrators, and VMware administrators access to customized views and workflows that map directly to the specific SLAs associated with each role.
With NetVault XA, administrators have direct visibility into the recoverability of the specific IT services they are responsible for managing, and are able to leverage specialized data protection tools to perform granular, platform-specific backup and recovery tasks – all without sacrificing the convenience and simplicity of single-console management.
NetVault XA also features a host of additional capabilities designed to simplify backup and recovery for administrators, including:
- Security across the enterprise: An intelligent and adaptive policy engine that enforces specific data protection controls and requirements.
- SLA validation: Built-in validation of a given protection plan through alerts that proactively let users know whether or not an SLA is achievable based on the established backup and recovery parameters.
- Unified management of on-premise and cloud assets: The ability to act as a gateway to multi-vendor clouds, thus enabling users to manage both on-premise and cloud assets from a single interface.
- Role-based reporting capabilities: Role-based reporting capabilities that empower users to develop reports that map directly to the specific SLAs they are responsible for maintaining, to better demonstrate the impact and value of backup and recovery to the entire business.
- Anytime, anywhere access: Remote, cloud-based operating capabilities, giving users anytime, anywhere access, including the ability to manage and control backup and recovery operations directly from their iPads.
Unifying Quest’s Data Protection Portfolio
A flexible and extensible solution with a set of shared services, NetVault Extended Architecture will serve as the centerpiece of Quest’s data protection solution. It will enable customers to deploy and manage all of the company’s backup and recovery technologies – including the NetVault, vRanger®, LiteSpeed®, and Recovery Manager product families – from a single console, while leveraging a host of shared services including deduplication; cloud gateway; and a common scheduler, catalog, policy manager, and reporting engine.
All of Quest’s current data protection products, as well as future releases, will ultimately snap seamlessly into the NetVault XA management console. This extensible architecture is designed to give companies the flexibility to grow seamlessly from SMB to enterprise, by leveraging a pay-as-you-grow approach that alleviates any need to rip and replace solutions as the organization’s needs evolve.
Pricing and Availability
NetVault Extended Architecture will be available to customers as a downloadable thin-client at no additional charge.
The first iteration of NetVault XA will be generally available in the second half of 2012, and will be incorporated into the planned releases of NetVault Backup, NetVault SmartDisk, and vRanger.