Announcing VMware vSphere Data Protection

This week is the big VMworld show in San Francisco.  EMC pulls out all the stops for this event; Chad's blog has an excellent roundup of all the EMC VMworld activities.

But there are a handful of big announcements planned that got my attention. 

The first really isn't an EMC announcement -- it's a new VMware product based on EMC's Avamar technology. 

And definitely worthy of a quick blog post.

Market Dynamics

In smaller infrastructure environments, there's an evergreen appeal for integrated functionality -- products that simply work together right out of the box, so to speak.  This was true decades ago when minicomputers were king (AS/400 et. al.).  It's true when you go shopping for legacy operating system environments (e.g Windows).  It's also true when you're looking for physical infrastructure (e.g. VSPEX).

So the fact that VMware would want to offer advanced data protection functionality that's well-integrated with vSphere shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

The Details  - What You Need To Know

Avamar's data protection technology involves a small dedupe client that runs on the host or desktop.  As it scans, it's looking for changed blocks.  If the signature for that block has ever been seen before by Avamar, it's not backed up redundantly, making Avamar an inline dedupe approach using mostly host resources. 

As a result, backups tend to be amazingly fast and efficient (including backups of remote devices) since you're sending an absolute minimum of data over the wire.   As an example, I've been using Avamar on my legacy EMC desktop for a while -- I never really know when it's running.

What you might not know was that Avamar was conceived to work in VMware environments from the start.  When EMC acquired the company back in 2006, they already had a robust offering for ESX 3.x, and had made good progress in running their backend servers entirely in virtual containers -- long before it became the cool thing to do. 

Put differently: the technology wasn't adapted to virtualization; it was designed for virtualization.

Although vSphere Data Protection (VDP for short) is based on Avamar technology, it is *not* identical to the Avamar product.  VDP is sold and supported by VMware -- it's a packaged virtual-machine solution that addresses very specific data protection needs in the VMware marketplace -- nothing more, nothing less.

The specifications for VDP are spot-on for their use case.  There's a limit of 100 VMs supported in the initial version -- more than enough for most modest environments.  The back-end deduped datastore (hosted in VMs, natch!) is limited to 2TB.  Again, quite reasonable.  There's no remote replication for additional off-site data protection.  And, today, it's an image-level backup product.

By comparison, the full Avamar product from EMC does much more: unlimited number of VMs, up to 124TB in a single storage pool, all sorts of replication for additional protection, guest-level and application-aware backup and recovery, integration with Data Domain and a rather lengthy suite of other EMC data protection products, desktop/laptop backup, extended retention to VTL/tape, etc. etc. 

Almost no overlap between the two -- except the core technology.

VMware VDP instead focuses on ease-of-use and extreme simplicity.  Specifying and monitoring data protection for your VMs is never more than a few mouse-clicks -- using the same look-and-feel of other VMware products. 

End users can easily mount a restore point (or multiples) without copying everything back, and then recover the files they're interested in.  All very self-service, which is what you'd expect in smaller environments.

What Happens Next?

VMware's vision is the "software defined data center".  Storage -- and everything that goes with it, like data protection -- is a key ingredient of that vision.  Here we have an excellent example of advanced data protection, completely expressed as virtualized software.

On a more pragmatic note, I think that VMware needed to offer data protection capabilities as part of vSphere, especially for smaller environments.  In my mind, it's sort of a competitive imperative.  Now they've got what their customers need, and -- by all appearances -- it's a very slick integration indeed.

As an unabashed EMC fan, of course I'm pleased that VMware selected EMC's Avamar technology for their product.  There are a lot of potentially decent alternative choices that could have been considered; I see this as a clear nod that they liked the Avamar approach.

I can't believe that the other backup vendors in this space will be especially overjoyed about this -- they now have another obstacle to overcome in a highly competitive marketplace. 

Unfortunately, things that are easier to consume tend to get consumed more; and VDP will be exceptionally easy to consume going forward. 

Of course, EMC's hope is that buyers of VDP really like the technology (just as Avamar customers do today), and -- when their needs exceed what VDP offers, EMC and our partners will likely get the first shot at the business.

That's the idea, anyway :)

Comments

[Joe Budion]

Hopefully some of these product enhancements make their way into the full version of Avamar!

[TimC]

VMware "selected" VDP? Just like they "selected" their new CEO? Let's just call a spade a spade. If VMware had a choice of backup product to integrate there were about a dozen solutions better than Avamar. They were given a product and told to use it. It didn't occur in a vacuum or a private room where a bunch of engineers sat down and evaluated which product would be best. I just find it laughable how you constantly "spin" things - we call that lying where I come from.

[Chuck Hollis]

Wow, Tim -- ever considered decaf?

Since you weren't close to the process -- and many of us at EMC/VMware were -- it wasn't the slam dunk you're making it out to be.

The VMware team is focused on doing what's best for VMware's customers and partners. Trust me, there's plenty in the EMC portfolio they haven't bitten on. And that mission shouldn't preclude selecting an EMC technology to fill a gap.

The VMware team also had plenty of different approaches to choose from when the started looking at this requirement. The EMC BRS team worked their little backsides off over several years to secure this integration point.

Nobody was "told" to do anything. That's not spin -- that's the way it works.

VMware's CEO succession was decided by VMware's Board of Directors, just like any other publicly traded company. Yes, you'll see a lot of familiar names on the roster, would you expect any different?

Personally, I consider the arrangement between the two companies good for each, and especially good for customers and partners -- and that's what they tell us.

And, finally, a bit of advice?

Before you accuse someone of lying on a public forum, you really owe it yourself to get your facts straight.

-- Chuck

[TimC]

"Familiar names" is an interesting way of putting it. Out of 8 members, 6 are current or former EMC employees including the chairman. So again, I stand by my comment that "VMware" did not in any way choose their CEO, EMC did. A spade is a spade no matter how many times you call it a duck. I'm not sure how you can say that with a straight face and expect anyone to take you seriously.

Now back to the topic at hand. It's kind of weird that someone from EMC was so close to this evaluation process. After all, you just told us VMware made this decision on their own. Why on earth would EMC be involved in VMware taking an unbiased look at the various backup products available to them? I'm also curious as to why VMware didn't bother engaging any of their other backup partners in this open evaluation you're claiming occurred. Since you were close to the project, I'm sure you can provide us a short summary of which products were tested, and why the other ones were not chosen. What shortcomings these other manufacturers presented and were not willing to work with VMware on correcting.

You question my facts and repeatedly imply that they're inaccurate without actually providing an ounce of substance to contradict them. Making vague references to a long drawn out comparison without so much as listing even one other competitor is a joke.

[Chuck Hollis]

Tim

VMware's evaluation process was run by VMware, not EMC. The decision on what to do was made by VMware, not EMC. I had acquaintances -- on both sides -- who were involved.

I'm telling it exactly as I heard it.

I feel I am under no obligation whatsoever to offer "proof" just because some anonymous dude decides to leave his emotional rant on my blog.

Take or leave my assertions as you please, but accusing me of lying because you happen to disagree with me isn't a stellar example of professional conduct.

Were you not aware that EMC owned a majority share of VMware? And that under our current economic system, ownership of a portion of a company usually entitles the owner to seats on the board?

By the way, you haven't shared your affiliation or situation, have you?

This conversation is over.

-- Chuck

[Yasmin Weber]

Great post, and great advice. Thank you for taking the time to post this. You posted some great information, and it's been really useful to read so once again thanks. It was written great, and I also learned something new from their!

[Owen Chastain]

the product is promising, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to troubleshoot failed backups. I've downloaded all the logs, but can't find any useful information.