Appliance Deployment Featured Article

There is an increasing shift among users towards virtual backup appliance deployment, according to a recent findings published by Arkeia Software at VMworld 2012, held inSan Francisco, Calif. from August 26-29. The survey of VMware users revealed new information about the most current data protection practices and future requirements.

Nearly 80 percent of survey respondents reported they are considering deployment of a backup server as a virtual appliance. Because they are used lightly outside of the primary backup window, backup servers would support server consolidation.

According to the study, 63 percent of VMware users need to protect both physical and virtual servers. Previous surveys conducted by Arkeia have shown that still larger fractions of mid-market IT shops continue to deploy at least some physical servers, requiring that their backup solution be able to protect both virtual and physical environments.

Arkeia Software provides backup appliance deployment and recovery solutions for mid-sized organizations that require fast, easy-to-use, and affordable data protection.  The company's appliances, virtual appliances, and software back up critical data to disk, tape, and cloud storage.

"Administrators that deploy backup servers as virtual appliances fully reap the benefits of virtualization, including cost reduction, ease of provisioning, and availability," said Bill Evans, CEO of Arkeia Software, in a statement.  "Having first delivered a backup server as a VMware-compatible virtual appliance in 2008, Arkeia has witnessed steady growth in adoption of virtual appliances for backup.”

At VMworld 2012, Arkeia demonstrated the performance of its vmOneStep virtual appliance deployment solution. Downloading the appliance from the Web, deploying the appliance on a VMware ESXi hypervisor, and beginning a backup of multiple virtual machines took five minutes from start to finish. 

“We believe that the deployment of backup servers as virtual appliances is the natural outcome of the industry's inexorable adoption of virtualization," Evans said.

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