News

posted on 10 June 2008 14:57

FalconStor's Virtual Tape Library integrates with NetBackup through Symantec's new OpenStorage API which allows NetBackup to communicate with intelligent storage devices to speed up and simplify backup.

NetBackup runs in a Media Server and, through the use of the API, pushes data movement and other responsibilities down the storage stack onto intellligent storage devices - storage servers in Symantec-speak - such as FalconStor's Virtual Tape Library (VTL). FalconStor's VTL is the only Fibre Channel storage product certified with the new Symantec API.

It is as if Symantec's NetBackup has at last come of age with disk-based backup and no longer assumes it is dealing with tape devices.

The API separates the backup business logic from the storage device implementation. When used with OpenStorage, the FalconStor VTL presents a logical storage unit target, not an emulated tape interface.

Lauren Whitehouse, an ESG analyst, said: “The integration between the Veritas NetBackup OpenStorage API and the FalconStor VTL OpenStorage Option enables NetBackup administrators to gain greater visibility into their backup storage infrastructure. NetBackup users can benefit from a variety of efficiencies that the FalconStor VTL offers, including Fibre Channel-speed, performance, and data deduplication." FalconStor supports iSCSI connectivity as well.

The Symantec-FalconStor VTL combination simplifies management and increases flexibility in the storage backup and retrieval processes with disk-based backup features such as:

- Migration of backup images from disk devices to tape for long-term archiving, without the NetBackup Media Server moving the data

- Optimized duplication (replication) of backup images from local to remote sites for disaster recovery or centralized archiving

- Simplified management for NetBackup users, allowing a single policy layer and catalog to control both backup and recovery

- Catalog information is maintained during copy-to-tape operations and management is consolidated into a single console

- Individual backup images can be deleted as they expire based on policy

- The combined system can reclaim disk space for new backups with no need to wait for all images on a tape to expire

- Sysadms can also easily determine the free space remaining on disk. 

Other vendors such as Data Domain and NetApp are also qualified with the OpenStorage API and use NFS and CIFS type interfaces. FalconStor's Peter Eicher, a product marketing director, said that, with Falconstor: "There's no file system overhead."

He also said: "FalconStor can, uniquely, run the NetBackup Media Server software on the VTL itself." That can be good news as it eliminates a physical server and eliminates a network path from the Media Server to the VTL.

Eicher reckons that this NetBackup and FalconStor VTL combination: "gets people away from tape at remote sites. They'll need it in the data center for a long time no matter what happens."

A net result of the new API is that Symantec Media Servers do less work worrying about data movement to pseudo-tape devices and have more capacity to handle data protection jobs in the application servers they manage.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}