Far too many IT organizations tend to confuse backup with archiving. A lot of them assume that if they are backing up their files they have created an archive. Of course, vendors don’t tend to make it easy for them to do both because most backup and archiving applications require different physical storage systems.
EMC this week is looking to change that with the release of EMC SourceOne archiving software for an upgraded EMC Data Domain deduplication storage system.
According to Peter Smails, senior director of product marketing at EMC, the lynchpin of the company’s effort to unify backup and archiving is a new file system that can be used to back up and archive over 40 different file types. This approach allows IT organizations to use a single set of Data Domain systems to manage both functions, says Smails.
Smails adds that new file systems, when coupled with EMC SourceOne, result in an approach to archiving that provides a three-fold increase in the ingest speed for archiving.
Other new features in the latest version of the Data Domain platform include tighter integration with the Oracle RMAN and the Symantec NetBackup applications, and new support for the Dell NetVault application for backing up files, in addition to support for Fibre channel.
Besides confusion over when to back up or archive a file, one of the primary reasons that not enough archiving is being done these days is that the process as it stands today is inefficient. In that regard, it looks like things are finally starting to change for the better.