CommVault enters into an OEM agreement with NetApp

CommVault today announced that it has entered into a global OEM agreement with NetApp under which NetApp will integrate elements of CommVault’s industry leading Simpana 9 software with NetApp SnapShot and replication technology, under the NetApp SnapProtect brand.

The company believes that the NetApp SnapProtect software, based on an OEM version of Simpana software and close integration with NetApp SnapVault^® and SnapMirror^® transforms how companies can efficiently protect, manage and access enterprise data across all tiers of storage.

Under this expanded relationship between NetApp and CommVault, NetApp will offer its NetApp SnapProtect branded software, a unique packaging of the Simpana snapshot copies, replication and tape management software, licensed on a per controller basis. SnapProtect software is designed specifically for customers that want to combine efficient, high-speed NetApp Snapshot™  technology and replication with tape in a single backup solution that accelerates and simplifies data protection.

Simpana customers will also benefit from this announcement because of the increased integration and management of NetApp Snapshot™ technologies within Simpana to accelerate and simplify the backup and recovery process, the company said.

NetApp SnapProtect management software will be sold through NetApp’s worldwide direct sales force and distribution partners.

With today’s OEM agreement, NetApp joins a growing list of top-tier storage vendors that have partnered with CommVault, including Dell, Hitachi Data Systems, Bull and Fujitsu.

“IT organisations are re-architecting their backup infrastructures in an effort to modernize their approach to data protection and speed data recovery across physical and virtual environments. NetApp SnapProtect offers customers seamless integration between CommVault Simpana software and NetApp Snapshot software and SnapVault replication, which significantly reduces operational costs, lowers risk, and eliminates the complexity of managing enterprise data protection,” said David West, senior VP, marketing and business development at CommVault.

The company pointed out that legacy approaches to enterprise data protection are broken and can lead to a high risk of business interruption and skyrocketing costs.  According to Lauren Whitehouse, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, “more than one-third (38%) of ESG research respondents¹ identified improving the backup and recovery of virtual machines as a key area of focus. As more organisations deploy virtualisation in production environments and expand the reach of the technology, the inadequacies of non-optimized backup and recovery solutions will continue to be exposed.”

For customers requiring efficient protection of large volumes of data, who simply can’t afford application down time, CommVault’s integration with NetApp and the unique Simpana single protection policy approach catalogs, schedules and manages snapshots for rapid recovery of application-consistent snapshots.

Simpana software not only manages the scheduling and movement of persistent hardware snapshots, but also indexes each snapshot to provide application intelligence, even as they are replicated to alternate NetApp storage and written to tape.

Previously, customers had limited awareness of the data within a snapshot and had to resort to complicated scripting in order to move data from a snapshot to tape. By creating application aware, indexed snapshot copies with NetApp replication technology, users can seamlessly protect large datasets such as those created by VMware in a very efficient manner.

“As organisations move to cloud and virtualised environments, a level of complexity is introduced that is making it challenging for IT professionals to meet backup and recovery service levels. Enterprises need a backup strategy that enables them to reliably meet shorter backup windows and recovery point objectives,” said Dave Russell, research VP at Gartner.