Real opportunities from virtual tape libraries.The virtual tape library A hard disk array that emulates a tape library. A virtual tape library (VTL) enables the storage medium to be switched from tapes to disks while continuing to use the existing tape backup software. See virtual tape system and storage virtualization. market is pioneer territory for storage vendors and resellers should keep abreast Verb 1. keep abreast - keep informed; "He kept up on his country's foreign policies" keep up, follow trace, follow - follow, discover, or ascertain the course of development of something; "We must follow closely the economic development is Cuba" ; "trace the of the technology to capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. significant profit opportunities in this growing market. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. recent IDC forecasts, the worldwide virtual tape library (VTL See virtual tape library. ) market will double to $1.4 billion by 2011. Resellers are already reporting a strong increase in demand and interest. This demand is fueled by businesses struggling to protect growing volumes of data within smaller backup windows and to meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. With the cost of storage rising, disk-based VTL systems represent a significant sales opportunity for storage resellers within their existing tape library customer base. VTLs provide the best solution to the growing need for increased backup and restore speed, data de-duplication See deduplication. , and disaster protection. VTLs combine the speed and convenience of disk storage with the ability to emulate leading tape drive systems, making them easy to install and use. For resellers, there are several good reasons to sell VTL technology: - Target customers are easy to identify - Demonstrable benefits and sound business case make it easy to sell - Appliance model is easy to install and support - Several opportunities for add-on sales including: - Incremental backup See backup types. (operating system) incremental backup - A kind of backup that copies all files which have changed since the date of the previous backup. The first backup of a file system should include all files - a "full backup". Call this level 0. software licenses In computing, software that is copyrighted and licensed under a software license is done under a variety of licensing schemes. For end-users there are proprietary licenses and there are free software licenses, and there are proprietary Within these schemes are further classifications. - Installation services - Backup health check/network optimization - Upgrades/added capacity, performance - Extensibility and scalability ensures long-term value/sales opportunities Easy-to-Identify Target Customers VTL technology is beneficial to customers in a wide range of industries and vertical markets. It is an easy fit for customers with any or all of the following concerns: - Problems meeting their backup window - Inability to restore data fast enough - Excess staff time spent on labor-intensive and repetitive media management tasks (i.e., mounting tapes, fixing tape drive failures, recalling tapes from storage for restoration) - Concerns about meeting regulatory requirements for data retention, restoration, or disaster protection - Budgetary constraints or space limitations in the data center - Need a secure off-site vaulting vaulting Gymnastics exercise in which the athlete leaps over a form that was originally intended to mimic a horse. At one time, the pommel horse was used in the vaulting exercise, with the pommels (handles) removed. solution Easy to Sell For the cost of physical tape, VTLs are many times faster than tape and significantly easier-to-manage than disk-to-disk systems. They also eliminate the risks to data posed by physical tape, such as tape loss, theft, or damage. These demonstrable benefits provide a strong business case in favor of VTL technology and make it easy to sell. Creating a backup library built on disk rather than tape allows IT managers to perform valuable tasks, such as fast backups and instant backup restores that were not previously possible with a tape library. VTLs are quick and easy to install and integrate seamlessly into existing environments, so the step up the technology ladder is non-disruptive and does not require that old systems be discarded. A company's old systems, which were designed to write to tape, can then back-up to disk, as if it were tape. Virtualization An umbrella term for enhancing a computer's ability to do work. Following are the ways virtualization is used. Hardware Virtualization Partitioning the computer's memory into separate and isolated "virtual machines" simulates multiple machines within one physical computer. provides a valuable transition towards new technology. Many organizations still depend on technologies that were developed in the early sixties for their complex data management processes. VTLs can bring a whole storage environment up to date--slashing restore times to seconds, improving the overall performance and cost of data storage, preparing the data for intelligent applications--effectively solving several pressing business issues. Mike Adams Mike Adams may refer to:
Reliability, Ease of Use Reflect Well on Reseller The last thing a reseller wants to do is to sell a product that doesn't work. Unlike disk-to-disk solutions that require complex configuration and have a poor track record for reliability, VTL appliances are nearly plug and play. Resellers can set up and install a VTL in a customer data center in a few hours. It emulates the existing tape drive environment so there is no disruption to the customer operations or its end-users. In fact, customers don't have to change their backup software See backup program. (tool, software) backup software - Software for doing a backup, often included as part of the operating system. Backup software should provide ways to specify what files get backed up and to where. or backup/retention policies. Best of all, resellers look good to their customers. Mark Masterson, account manager for SiGNAL Computer Products explains the benefits of selling VTL technology from his perspective. "We recently had a customer who had three critical needs: a way to eliminate daily tape management tasks, a way to backup more data in a shrinking backup window, and most importantly Adv. 1. most importantly - above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent" above all, most especially , a way to make their data restores much faster. Selling them VTL technology was straightforward and it was the only way to meet their needs." Opportunities for Incremental Additional or increased growth, bulk, quantity, number, or value; enlarged. Incremental cost is additional or increased cost of an item or service apart from its actual cost. Sales Resellers of VTL technology gain the opportunity to sell additional licenses of the customer's preferred backup software. They can also sell installation services as well as backup efficiency "checkups" and network optimization services. Many companies find that the speed and efficiency of VTL technology can expose weaknesses in their existing infrastructure and network. More and more companies are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. professional services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. consultants to evaluate their infrastructure for ways to tune it to peak efficiency. Extensibility and Scalability Ensures Long-Term Value Some VTL technologies were specifically designed for long-term usage. They allow customers to add features and functionality to meet changing data management needs. These technologies currently offer the ability to add remote site replication or data de-duplication through simple software upgrades. VTLs also work with a variety of third-party software and systems to further enhance their capabilities, including encryption, mainframe compatibility, and WAN optimization WAN optimization products seek to accelerate a broad range of applications accessed by distributed enterprise users via eliminating redundant transmissions, staging data in local caches, compressing and prioritizing data, and streamlining chatty protocols (e.g., CIFS).. for remote replication. Resellers get the benefit of this added sales opportunity. VTLs also allow scale more easily than tape drive systems to help customers handle growing data volumes. VTLs that scale capacity and performance independently eliminate the need for over-buying that customers are forced into with tape drive systems. With these systems, resellers can sell them the capacity and performance they need to address their growth without excessive capital expense. Data De-Duplication Stores More Data in Less Space Advanced data de-duplication technologies combined with hardware-based data compression data compression Process of reducing the amount of data needed for storage or transmission of a given piece of information (text, graphics, video, sound, etc.), typically by use of encoding techniques. in a VTL can reduce the amount of capacity required for a given volume of data by as much as fifty fold. That means less space required in the data center, and less power and heating/ventilation costs. In addition, by reducing the amount of spinning disks and other sources of mechanical failure that are common to tapes, VTL technology makes the backup infrastructure more reliable. Conclusion The price of disk-based storage is continuously coming down. Corporate demand for data protection and availability are increasing. Companies from small-to-medium businesses to large corporations can now afford the benefits of VTL, so the market need is significant. This new market offering is ripe with opportunity for resellers who are willing to help customers understand the benefits of virtualization. For them, the rewards will be huge. Linda Mentzer is vice president at SEPATON, Inc. www.sepaton.com |
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