CommVault's Simpana 10 Adds More Than 300 Enhancements

All told, Simpana 10 offers more than 300 enhancements from the previous Simpana 9 release, said Greg White, senior product marketing manager for CommVault.

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"It's an exponential leap forward in how people use and find and protect data. Ultimately, the goal is how customers solve for the problems of today and tomorrow and [helping them] achieve those goals: how to reduce costs, make things less complex, and reduce overhead, support and challenges," White said.

The enhancements fall in three buckets: protection, management and access, White said.

Included are improved snapshot management capabilities, leveraging new IntelliSnap technology, formerly called SnapProtect. IntelliSnap provides instant and automated recovery of applications and virtual servers, and adds support for Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V and enhancements to IBM DB2, Lotus Notes, SAP and Oracle.

"We're talking about managing hardware-based snapshots so you have a quick ability to recover without impacting production resources," White said. "In the past, it's been complicated by needing multiple tools, having the application awareness and often needing scripts that were done through a manual process."

Simpana 10 brings that all together through IntelliSnap technology that can be managed across heterogeneous storage arrays, he said.

The heterogeneous support for storage arrays should benefit customers who have mixed-vendor environments, said Ralph Nimergood, vice president of worldwide partner and programs.

"You don't have to learn, manage, propagate multiple tool sites. You use one management console to achieve their snapshot capability," he said.

Meanwhile, CommVault also has improved Simpana OnePass with Exchange, White said.

"A year ago, when we launched the first iteration for file systems you had to run backup, scan file systems, run backup, scan again, run the archive and scan again. With OnePass, it combines into a single scan of the data so there's less impact on the resources," he said.

Management improvements include a new workflow automation capability, a graphical interface that requires no scripting and allows users to create workflows within Simpana.

"As a service provider looks to provide consultative services, they can provide a workflow template. An example is disaster recovery," White said. "Instead of creating a big disaster recovery run-book, you create a workflow and have that flexibility to change or update it in a fluid kind of way."

On the mobile front, CommVault allows users to access, search, download and restore files and documents in ContentStore without any third-party services or applications. The CommVault Edge mobile app for smartphones and tablets provides access to end users for their personal data, and administrators can report and manage tasks with a new CommVault Monitor app.

CommVault has about 18,000 customers and is growing at 25 percent a year, Nimergood said. Simpana 10 should help solution providers drive more opportunities into customers looking for big data and data information management, he added.

"[Big data] is becoming the Holy Grail. Simpana 10 puts [VARs] in the pole position of consultative seller with an end-to-end solution represented by a platform ply to get started in one area and move across multiple areas without having to switch out a user experience or a management experience," Nimergood said.

PUBLISHED MARCH 15, 2013