This week’s News Bits we look at a number of small announcements, small in terms of the content, not the impact they have. QNAP Enterprise NAS now support Veritas Backup Exec. Dell EMC reach $2 billion in Unity bookings in under two years. ClearSky Data introduces scale-up NAS capabilities. Cohesity expands integration with Azure. Quest Software releases NetVault Backup 12.0. Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 supports NVIDIA vGPU. DDN & Parabricks partner on GPU acceleration of genome analysis. Hitachi Vantara introduces HDID v6.5. Panzura achieves Veeam Ready Certification.
This week’s News Bits we look at a number of small announcements, small in terms of the content, not the impact they have. QNAP Enterprise NAS now support Veritas Backup Exec. Dell EMC reach $2 billion in Unity bookings in under two years. ClearSky Data introduces scale-up NAS capabilities. Cohesity expands integration with Azure. Quest Software releases NetVault Backup 12.0. Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 supports NVIDIA vGPU. DDN & Parabricks partner on GPU acceleration of genome analysis. Hitachi Vantara introduces HDID v6.5. Panzura achieves Veeam Ready Certification.
QNAP Enterprise NAS Now Support Veritas Backup Exec
QNAP Systems, Inc. has become a partner in the Veritas Technology Ecosystem. This means users can now run Veritas Backup Exec on their QNAP NAS devices. It also means that they can create a highly-scalable backup storage appliance by installing Backup Exec on Windows Server running in QNAP’s Virtualization Station.
Dell EMC Reach $2 Billion In Unity Bookings In Under 2 Years
Dell EMC launched Unity two years ago. Since then they have been able to hit $2 billion in cumulative bookings, which includes 22K Unity systems shipped, 12K downloads of Unity VSA, and several deployment models connecting to Dell EMC Unity cloud. We reviewed the Unity 450F all-flash array and found that its performance was so impressive we awarded it our Editor’s Choice award.
ClearSky Data Introduces Scale-Up NAS Capabilities
ClearSky Data now supports network attached file systems that allows customer to extend large file workloads to the cloud. The system lets users pay for what they use and comes with built-in, offsite disaster recovery and backup. Features include:
- High performance storage with minimal footprint
- Integration with Microsoft Active Directory, Kerberos and other authentication services
- Microsoft SMB support
- Support for user and group policies for storage allocation
- Automated cloud-based backups and disaster recovery
- Unlimited scale leveraging ClearSky Data’s leading cloud provider partners
- End-to-end encryption
- Storage cost reduction of more than 50%
Cohesity Expands Integration With Azure
Cohesity has expanded its integration with Microsoft Azure. This expanded integration will allow joint customers to leverage Cohesity Data Platform with the global scale and cost-effectiveness of Azure. The expanded integration also makes it easier for Cohesity DataPlatform users to take advantage of Azure Blod Storage.
Quest Software Releases NetVault Backup 12.0
Quest Software announced the latest release of its enterprise backup and recovery solution, NetVault Backup 12.0. Key features and benefits include:
- Scaled-up virtualization backup management: Enables VMware plug-ins to run on any available proxy, allowing users to back up virtual machines (VMs) with a single unified view, with the ability to scale to thousands of VMs. Additionally, it includes a heuristic algorithm that load balances backup jobs across multiple clients acting as backup proxies.
- Application-aware storage array snapshots: Perform significantly faster and easier backups with recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for even the most demanding business needs.
- Single sign-on: Allows users to log into NetVault using Active Directory credentials, and role-based access controls regulate what operations administrators can perform. A “push install” capability helps streamline updates and installs – a particularly valuable feature for large environments with hundreds of clients.
- Powerful catalog search: Advanced search capabilities enable fast, granular searches of backup indexes, including fast-search capabilities for metadata (such as name, mod date and type) and save-sets with offline indexes; all enabling faster restores.
- Best-of-breed usability: More intuitive, single-screen workflows – including a new comprehensive widget-based dashboard – and efficient navigation streamline ease of use for administrators.
Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 Supports NVIDIA vGPU
Red Hat released the latest version of its KVM-powered virtualization platform, Red Hat Virtualization 4.2. The latest version of the platform adds support for NVIDIA virtual GPU solutions as well as:
- User Interface (UI) – Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 delivers an easier-to-use and more intuitive user interface. Using the open source PatternFly project, the Red Hat Virtualization UI now provides a cohesive look and feel to other Red Hat offerings, including Red Hat CloudForms. This is designed to help increase productivity for IT operations, as users can more comfortably move between management tools without having to relearn basic functions.
- Disaster Recovery (DR) – New disaster recovery capabilities within Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 deliver a native site-to-site failover capability. Instead of depending on integration with a specific storage vendor, Red Hat Virtualization can use storage at both primary and failover sites with more reliable and consistent data replication. Adding to this functionality are Red Hat Ansible Playbooks and Roles that better enable automated failover and failback of DR processes, which limits the potential for human error to cause data and operational losses.
- Software-Defined Networking (SDN) – Open Virtual Network (OVN) has been integrated with Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 to deliver a native SDN solution through Open vSwitch. This is designed to provide automated management of network infrastructure and a Neutron compatible API for external network providers, as well as network self-service for users, which helps to free up network administrators from user requests for additional infrastructure.
- Metrics and Logging – The new metrics and logging features of Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 deliver enhanced real-time reporting and visualization capabilities built around the Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana (EFK), which help to drive increased operational efficiency.
- High Performance VM – Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 provides a new high performance VM option, which is designed to streamline the process of configuring a high-performing VM, a necessity for extreme workloads like big data analysis or AI. This makes it possible for VMs running on Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 to run at nearly bare metal speeds, offering additional performance and efficiency for demanding applications.
DDN & Parabricks Partner On GPU Acceleration Of Genome Analysis
DDN Storage and the GPU-based software solution provider, Parabricks, are working together to deliver a solution that provides massive acceleration for analysis of human genomes. The solution consists of GPU supercomputing performance and DDN’s Parallel Flash Data Platforms. The solution is shipping now.
Hitachi Vantara Introduces HDID v6.5
Hitachi Vantara introduced the latest version of its Hitachi Data Instance Director, HDID v6.5. This specialized data recovery platform enables long-term retention and reuse of managed copy data. Benefits include:
- Increase the value of their HCP investment and reduce the cost and management challenges they have with traditional methods of storing and managing backup data.
- Gain access to a broader range of data, eliminate the complexity of auditing the many systems that are the subject of the audits, and eradicate performance and availability impacts on those production systems when performing audits.
- Capture only incrementally changed files, reducing backup times and the required storage capacity.
Panzura Achieves Veeam Ready Certification
At VeeamOn 2018, Panzura announced that its Freedom NAS has achieved Veeam Ready certification. Benefits include:
- Ability to store Veeam backup files in any public or private cloud.
- FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption provides enterprise-grade security.
- WAN acceleration with integrated global dedupe and compression maximizes throughput.
- Eliminates need for replication of backup images between different sites for disaster recovery.
- Panzura Freedom NAS can pre-populate data in secondary location for fast restoration.
- Backup files are immediately available for restoration at every location in the file system.
- Veeam users enjoy the scalability and durability of the cloud for backup files.
- Migration of VMs to the cloud is dramatically simplified with Veeam.
