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Legato Systems has upgraded its NetWorker data protection solution. NetWorker 7 improves the DiskBackup Option by allowing simultaneous multiple reads and writes to disk as a backup target. Data protection is managed to tape and disk with the management interface.
DiskBackup also provides a “cost-effective way to leverage the new class
of ATA disk arrays” from EMC CLARiiON, StorageTek’s BladeStore and
NetApp NearStore, according to the company.
“With the 24×7 influx of information into IT environments,
administrators are forced to look at backup technologies with disk-based
backup solutions, such as Legato NetWorker 7, to move the information
from primary disk to secondary disk then to tape,” says Steve Kenniston,
technology analyst for the Enterprise Storage Group. “Legato’s NetWorker
7’s backup to disk option allows for seamless management of disk as a
backup target so data can be written and read from the backup disk array
simultaneously for faster recoveries and rapid completion of staging and
cloning.”
NetWorker 7 now offers support for Windows 2003 Server, enterprise-ready
Linux distributions, and Mac OS X. “Legato is ahead of the competition
with NetWorker’s mature Linux support of Intel 64-bit Itanium
architecture and the ability to protect Linux journaling file systems,”
the company claims.
Kenniston said competitors include VERITAS’ NetBackup, CommVault’s Galaxy, BakBone’s NetVault, Tivoli Storage Manager, Computer Associate’s BrightStor, and HP’s OmniBack.
“Each one of these offers some level of competitiveness,” Kenniston says. “It’s hard to break it down when you’re talking about this level of technology. NetWorker 7 has some really cool features,” such as built-in HA (which CommVault also includes).
“All of these guys have a great deal of OS support,” he reports. “The newer guys do a little better job of reporting, like CommVault and BakBone, but only because they have learned over the years from the other folks. VERITAS still owns the market; others focus more on small to medium enterprises (BakBone and CommVault) and are using this as a Trojan Horse to come in under the incumbents.”
Legato also contends the new release will enable organizations to improve service levels and resource utilization in Storage Area Network (SAN) environments. NetWorker 7 customers can share tape drives among a wide variety of clustered environments, ensuring highly available applications,
reliable protection and maximum ROI for expensive tape libraries.
NetWorker 7 also expands enterprise-class protection of NAS devices via the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP). NetWorker 7
includes improved restore performance at a directory level, automated tape cloning for disaster recovery, and expanded platform support for
IBM AIX and HP Tru64. Another new addition in NetWork 7 is the allocation of tape drives between NDMP-based and non-NDMP-based devices, which provides for increased utilization and reduced TCO. “This is particularly valuable in large Network Appliance, EMC, and other NAS environments,” states Legato.
“NetWorker 7 is designed to meet customers’ growing data recovery, backup and budgetary pressures in large and small computing environments,” says Victoria Grey, Legato’s vice president for Information Protection. “The enhancements we have made in performance, reliability, and scalability will enable our customers to further streamline operations, while ensuring their storage assets are fully protected. Customers can now standardize on a single application to centrally protect UNIX, Windows, Linux, NetWare, OpenVMS and Macintosh systems.”
