Close to seven years ago, Veeam and Quantum came together to offer Veeam Backup & Replication as a tested and validated software for interoperability with Quantum DXi Series network attached storage (NAS) backup appliances. And with Quantum’s recent introduction of Converged Tape Appliance for Veeam Environments, our partnership continues to expand and evolve.
DXi deduplication appliances now integrated with Veeam
In May 2016, Quantum announced integration with Veeam Data Mover, which enables customers using DXi deduplication appliances the ability to accelerate some of Veeam’s more advanced features such as Instant VM Recovery and Veeam synthetic full backups.
Veeam Data Mover is a component that performs data processing tasks on behalf of Veeam Backup & Replication, such as retrieving source VM data, performing data deduplication and compression, and storing backed-up data on the target storage. With this new integration, Quantum added support for running the target data mover directly “on-board” of DXi storage, which significantly accelerates certain backup and restore operations and processes.
Quantum’s portfolio of DXi deduplication solutions provide patented variable-length deduplication to maximize data reduction, lower OPEX and enable efficient data movement across the WAN to other sites and to the cloud. Unlike other solutions, Quantum divides the data stream into variable-length data segments so users can find the same block boundaries in different locations and contexts. Allowing the boundaries to “float” within the data stream means there is little or no impact on the boundaries in other locations when changes to one part of the data are made. Doing so provides an efficient way to deduplicate common data in the data center.
Quantum DXi appliances take advantage of StorNext data management software to maximize performance workflows stored on disk, online storage, tape or in the cloud. Policy-based tiering allows users to seamlessly archive files to different types of storage without impacting applications or users. And with single-screen manageability, administrators can gain greater insight and control of their StorNext environment.
New Scalar iBlade for Veeam
Quantum’s new Scalar iBlade dramatically simplifies tape deployment and configuration for Veeam environments. The Scalar iBlade is an embedded server for Scalar i3 or i6 tape libraries. It includes a fully-licensed Windows Server 2016 virtual machine instance with appropriate tape library drivers pre-populated, eliminating the Veeam requirement of an external physical tape server. iBlade connects directly to the network and provides connectivity to the tape drives within the Scalar library to create what Bassier calls a “converged tape appliance” for Veeam environments.
Ransomware and rethinking tape
This wasn’t part of any announcement but given recent events, it’s still pretty timely. For years, many customers looked to the 3-2-1-1 Rule to protect their data (three copies of data on two different mediums with at least one of those copies stored off site). But ransomware attacks like the WannaCry virus have many customers rethinking the role of tape as part of their data protection strategy.
Tape provides an offline, or “air-gapped” copy of your data to protect against the insider threat or ransomware. With tape, backup copies are completely offline, which provide the ultimate protection for data from being deleted or encrypted remotely.
To learn more about the new integration, watch Eric Bassier, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Quantum discuss Quantum’s new integration with Veeam, the relevance of tape and “hyper-converged tape” for Veeam on theCUBE: