Chuck's Blog

EMC MegaLaunch II Overview

This morning, EMC is announcing 42 new or updated storage products.  That's a lot to consider.

Why 42?  

Other than the obvious reference from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, it's one more than the 41 products we announced at our last MegaLaunch event in early 2011.

I've done my best to look at each group of new or improved products, and share the highlights (as I see them) in an extended series of posts linked below.

I thought in this post I'd share what I think are the big trends motivating all this new R&D.

Data Domain and Avamar: Charting The Changes

I think by now everyone has gotten the memo -- enterprise data continues to grow and grow, with no end in sight.

That means that the amount of enterprise data that has to be protected -- backed up or otherwise replicated -- continues to grow and grow as well. 

Indeed, many enterprise backup environments put in only a handful of years ago are already feeling the pain and are thus likely candidates for a major fresh look.

It's in this fast-moving market that EMC's BRS (backup and recovery systems) division continues to innovate and thrive.

And, as part of EMC World, they've done their part in announcing important new capabilities: some modest, some quite large :)

IDC Establishes A New Storage Category

The storage market is moving very fast, indeed.  It’s a potent blend of explosive information growth coupled with rapid technological innovation.

Historically, IDC has been the independent scorekeeper for storage market share: who’s doing well, and who’s not.  No one is perfect in this regard, but IDC is the best out there, and has been for quite some time.

Today, IDC announced that – going forward – they’d be tracking a new category of storage: the purpose-built backup appliance, or PBBA.

Data Domain: Accelerating The Transition From Tape To Disk

As part of EMC's recent flurry of product announcements, EMC's BRS division (backup and recovery systems) is especially well represented: not only by bigger/better/faster versions of their existing successful products, but new offerings that open up interesting market segments.

As the IT industry progressively transitions to using disk for backup, recovery and archiving (and, correspondingly, moving away from tape), customers need solutionsEMC's BRS division is in an enviable position in terms of differentiated product features, leading market share and great customer enthusiasm.

Right now, I think this game belongs to EMC.