Symantec Upgrades Backup Appliances

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Symantec on Monday at its Symantec Vision 2012 conference announced enhancements to its backup and deduplication appliances--the NetBackup 5220 and Backup Exec 3600--that were introduced in the last year.

The NetBackup 5200 Backup Appliance with Deduplication is a 2U rack-mountable appliance that scales to 72 TB of useable capacity. The Backup Exec 3600 Backup Appliance has 5.5 TB of useable capacity in a 1U enclosure. Both appliances use the latest versions of NetBackup and Backup Exec.

The NetBackup 5220 Backup Appliance with Deduplication now deduplicates and backs up data with 72% fewer production resources, resulting in 100x faster backups than the previous model, the company said. In addition, it has two times the storage and deduplication capacity and supports direct vSphere backups with no proxy server required. The 5220 is also VMware Ready Certified and now works with more cloud service providers, the company said. The appliance now includes cloud storage support for Nirvanix, AT&T, and RackSpace. Further, WAN acceleration capability to the cloud or to a disaster recovery site has been included with the appliance.

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The BackupExec 3600 Backup Appliance has a simplified user interface and configurability that allows it to be installed in minutes, the company said. With V-Ray technology, the appliance can peer deeper into VMware and Hyper-V implementations and perform physical to virtual conversions. Through a partnership with Doyenz, the appliance can now provide a disaster recovery option that does not require additional hardware. Finally, the appliance can allow granular recovery of data and support disk, cloud or tape-based disaster recovery, the company said.

Symantec originally got into the backup and deduplication appliance market through a partnership with China-based Huawei Technologies. That relationship dissolved in March of this year.

The backup and deduplication appliance market is crowded with entrants from EMC Data Domain, EMC Avamar, Dell, Quantum, IBM with its ProtecTier appliance, and HP. According to IDC, in the first quarter of 2012, EMC led the market for purpose-built backup appliances with a 62% market share, followed by IBM with 16.5%, HP with 4.7%, and Symantec with 3.5%. IDC expects the total purpose-built backup appliance market to grow with a 2010-2015 Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 25.6%, totaling nearly $5.3 billion by the close of 2015.

The Backup Exec 3600 is available now starting at $15,595 or $25,995. The NetBackup 5220 is expected to be available in June starting at $23,000 for 4 TB.

Deni Connor is founding analyst for Storage Strategies NOW, an industry analyst firm that focuses on storage, virtualization, and servers.

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