Being responsible for large backup and recovery environments is not easy. Multiple backup servers, hundreds, probably thousands of clients, and growing data stores require constant vigilance. Being a highly-skilled, data protection expert, you’re happy to take guidance. Just like a golf professional consults with his or her trusted caddie to help make the perfect shot. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford the luxury of a salaried adviser, which is why many people invest in golf aids such as range finders. Tools and technology can help us to make better decisions.
Just like in golf, the working environment of the backup professional is constantly shifting. We feel your pain. But you’ll be glad to know the Predatar team will be rolling out it’s Orca release (r11.2) on Thursday 19th December; just in time for Christmas. If you are part of the Predatar community be sure to download the release notes from the portal. If you can’t wait, here are some of the highlights of this release.
Recovery Certainty
Many people see backup as an insurance policy and when they need to make a claim, they expect an unabbreviated recovery, in short order. The speed of server recovery is a blind spot for so many people, it has become the elephant-in-the-room. When I have been in meetings to hear a manager ask how long a recovery will take, the answer given has been shrouded in caveats. A typical answer is: “it depends on the amount of data, the storage medium and the network bandwidth”. It’s not good enough. It’s like asking the expert who packed your parachute if it will slow your descent in time and being told it depends on wind speed, the quality of the stitching and your weight. Not something you want to hear.
Predatar can help you answer these questions with certainty. It automates recovery via Storage Protect for Virtual Environments (SP4VE) and Storage Protect Plus (SPP). You can choose to schedule a recovery for one or many servers, at a scheduled time of your choice, and repeat periodically. Alternatively, you can ask Predatar to randomly select any number of servers to recover. By keeping a log of all recoveries, their success and speed, you can be confident in your answer the next time the question of recoverability is put to you.
It’s not just about backup verification. With a simple press of a button you can move virtual machines into production, a handy component of any disaster recovery system.
Get the Big Picture
You’ve been asking for more features to help you manage Storage Protect Plus installations. We heard you and the 11.2 release includes additional monitors on Storage Protect Plus jobs such as replication, and housekeeping. Remember, we keep the data to plot activity over time which helps you to more easily visualise the health and performance of your backup.
The Stocking Filler
You have also told us you don’t like big vendor, software licencing audits. Not much of a surprise! How many of you have experienced an audit, or have you erased it from your memory? We know it’s painful, which is why we have improved the License Snapshot feature by adding in support for Storage Protect Plus. You can now also see changes over time or calculate medians to simplify pay-as-you-use invoicing. You get to stay one-step ahead of compliance teams, with almost zero effort. And if you’ve ever wondered if you are using the most cost-effective licence model, you have all the information at your fingertips to make a good decision.
Stay tuned for more announcements coming in January but for now, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thanks for being part of our ecosystem in 2019. Keep the ideas flowing.
