CommVault Recasts QiNetix

Don't try to stereotype CommVault Systems Inc. It's looking to break out of its niche as a backup software player by enhancing its QiNetix suite -- but it's refusing to call its strategy information lifecycle management (ILM). [Ed. note: Thank you!]

CommVault next week will launch the first major upgrade to its three-year old QiNetix suite, including enhanced recovery capabilities, automated archiving, and data migration. QiNetix has succeeded in the backup market, but the vendor's looking to improve its reputation as a storage management package.

CommVault's stopping short of saying QiNetix is ILM, however. Even though it's meant to help companies deal with compliance issues and take advantage of cheaper disk for backup and archiving, marketing VP Larry Cormier thinks the term is overused. We’re shying away from saying it’s an ILM product,” he says. He thinks the term "tiered storage" is more appealing.

QiNetix’s new Recovery Director is at the heart of its beefed up tiered storage capabilities. The director lets users automate snapshot management, allowing them to set policies for migrating data to disk or tape or deleting it.

Whatever it calls its wares, CommVault is looking to make up ground on the dominant storage sofware players, primarily Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS) and EMC Corp./Legato (NYSE: EMC).CommVault's strategy with QiNetix and its other products is integration. The vendor aims to build backup-and-recovery, replication, automated migration, archiving, storage resource management (SRM), and service-level management into one product. Cormier claims that’s what differentiates CommVault from its larger competitors, such as those mentioned above.

“They’re increasing their reach,” IDC storage software research director Bill North says of CommVault. “They’re still perceived as a backup/data recovery company, but they’re quietly increasing their SRM and data replication capabilities.”

The integrated approach has advantages and disadvantages. QiNetix uses one agent and one common database for backup, replication, snapshot, SRM, mirroring, and security. Others use separate agents for each function. The one-agent approach saves CPU cycles that would otherwise be dedicated to each additional agent. It also makes it easier to install upgrades.

Still, some customers prefer picking and choosing separate applications for specific tasks. For example, CommVault’s SRM package may be adequate for most organizations, but some say it isn’t as detailed as competitors’ standalone SRM packages.

The QiNetix upgrade will be available Monday, with component pricing at $795. Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL) is expected to offer an OEM version for SMBs for about $400 in December (see CommVault Locks In Dell).Will the QiNetix release help CommVault in its battle for a bigger slice of the storage software pie? “The real question is, can CommVault continue to thrive in a moderate growth market place?” IDC's North says. “I think they have a good chance of doing that.”

Industry sources point to CommVault as an IPO candidate when the market improves, and it has a good chance to go over $100 million in revenue this year -- a substantial improvement over an estimated $44 million a year ago (see CommVault 'Well Positioned' for IPO). But that’s hardly a speck, compared to Veritas, which is closing in on $2 billion in revenue (see Veritas Rebounds).

Still, CommVault claims it has 12 straight quarters of double-digit year-over-year growth. North says typical growth in storage software is 6 percent to 9 percent. That's a good sign CommVault is picking up share.

Cormier says 70 percent of CommVault’s sales come against market leader Veritas. He points to Veritas’s recent acquisition of email archiving company KVS Inc. and EMC’s acquisition of Dantz Development Corp. as examples of the big vendors grabbing software built on code that is different from its current product (see No Brainer: Veritas Buys KVS and EMC Dances With Dantz).

Yet the big guys don’t seem too worried about CommVault -- at least not in public. EMC and Veritas spend little time talking about any other competitors (see New EMC Group Jabs Veritas). Jeremy Burton, executive VP of Veritas’s data protection division, lumps CommVault, BakBone Software Inc. (Toronto: BKB), and Yosemite Technologies Inc. into a group of what he calls “one-feature guys.”“I don’t think any of them will be the next $2 billion software company,” Burton says. “They’ll keep us on our toes, but to grow up, these one-feature companies have to get a breadth of products that are attractive to large customers.”

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch