Zmanda With Open Source and Backup-to-Cloud Solutions

The cost of data protection continued to present a significant challenge throughout 2008. In these difficult economic times the open source value proposition from Zmanda resonates well with IT managers who are struggling to meet their goals with rapidly dwindling budgets. Zmanda continued to deliver radically simple and affordable solutions to backup data in an increasingly complex and heterogeneous IT environment. The company will close 2008 with hundreds of new customers spanning 40 countries worldwide, and new product lines that extend Zmanda’s leadership in open source backup to the backup-to-cloud space.

Product Introductions

Throughout 2008, Zmanda announced new products and major version upgrades to existing products. In July, Zmanda introduced a major upgrade to its flagship product, Amanda Enterprise. This latest version provided the most complete heterogeneous open source backup and recovery solution available today. Several important enhancements in this version of Amanda Enterprise included:
Comprehensive Platform Coverage – allows multiple Windows, Linux, Solaris/OpenSolaris, and Mac OS X clients to be backed up to a master backup server running on Linux or Solaris (including OpenSolaris);
Comprehensive Application Coverage – online backup support for Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange and Oracle;
Windows System State Protection (including Active Directory) – provides fast system restoration and bare-metal recovery to dissimilar hardware and virtual environments;
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Support – ensures reliability during hot backups so that administrators can backup user files without impacting data access by users and applications;
Simplified Installation and Configuration Process – making it easier than ever to get up-and-running;
Usability Enhancements – allowing custom reporting and native Windows restoration.

In October, Zmanda launched a major upgrade to Zmanda Recovery Manager 3.0, its popular MySQL backup and recovery tool. ZRM is designed specifically for MySQL databases and includes unique, enterprise-grade features such as MySQL storage engine and snapshot intelligence, replication support, and integration of backup operations with MySQL binary logs. Further, ZRM is the only MySQL backup solution endorsed and distributed by MySQL/Sun Microsystems.

Several important enhancements in ZRM 3.0 included:

ZRM Windows Edition – a Windows-based MySQL backup and recovery edition to compliment the traditional mixed-platform edition for 100 percent Windows environments;
Expanded Linux Platform Support – for Ubuntu and Debian Linux;
Backup support for MySQL-Based Applications – making ZRM a backup solution for the complete LAMP stack;
EMC Clariion SnapView Support – EMC Clariion SnapView has been added to the robust list of supported snapshot technologies, which includes Linux LVM, Solaris ZFS, Microsoft VSS, Symantec VxFS and NetApp SnapManager. Storage level snapshot is the fastest mechanism to create backup of a large and rapidly changing MySQL database.

Lastly, Zmanda demonstrated innovation through the identification of the cloud as an excellent repository for secondary storage and the market need for secondary storage for disaster recovery purposes. In November, the company launched Zmanda Internet Backup (ZIB), a new Internet backup solution for Windows, to fill that market need. ZIB is a cost-effective and easy-to-use data protection solution for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that need backup and disaster recovery for their Windows Server and applications. ZIB is the IT industry’s first Windows backup and recovery solution that backs up a Windows Server and live applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange Server to Amazon’s highly dependable, scalable and affordable online storage service.

Technology Partnerships
Zmanda entered into new relationships with several top technology vendors in 2008.

In March, Zmanda and Sun announced a partnership agreement whereby Sun will resell ZRM for MySQL worldwide. Both ZRM and Amanda Enterprise are fully certified on Sun Open Storage platforms including the world’s first Open Storage appliance, the Sun Storage 7000 family. The product certifications resulted in several Quick Start Guides available from Sun’s collection of websites. Zmanda was also named a ‘MySQL Partner of the Year’ at the MySQL Conference and Expo in April.

In July, Zmanda announced Amanda Enterprise support for Oracle databases running on Oracle Enterprise Linux, Solaris and Windows. The company also joined the Oracle Unbreakable Linux Support Program. Zmanda Recovery Manager was tightly integrated with InnoDB – a transactional storage engine distributed by Oracle.

The company expanded its relationship with Amazon Web Services twice in 2008 and was highlighted by Amazon as a pioneer in backing up to the cloud. In January, Zmanda added an option to Amanda Enterprise that allows organizations of all sizes to easily and securely backup, archive and recover valuable data via the Internet to Amazon S3. The affordability of the solution combined with Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement resulted in many successful implementations with several customers storing Terabytes of business critical backup data on the Amazon S3 Cloud. The company further extended this relationship in October with the introduction of ZIB, a solution that backs up Windows servers and live applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server to Amazon S3.

In June, the company delivered a new level of data protection for MySQL databases with the integration of NetApp Snapshot technology with the ZRM for MySQL. Together, NetApp and ZRM enable MySQL customers to implement continuous data protection for mission-critical MySQL databases. Zmanda also joined the NetApp Advantage Developer Program.

In October, Zmanda announced integration of ZRM 3.0 for MySQL with EMC SnapView to provide continuous data protection for mission-critical MySQL database applications.

Customer Momentum
Zmanda’s revenue and subscriber base more than quadrupled in 2008. The company’s backup solutions are gaining significant traction in industries such as Web 2.0, media, higher education, internet services, defense, and government. Prominent companies such as Amazon, Cisco, Raytheon, Sony, Travelocity, Yelp, Harvard Children’s Hospital, BabyCenter.com and Yahoo! Mail entrust the protection of critical data to Zmanda’s backup and recovery solutions.

Community
Zmanda continued to lead the efforts by the open source community to build the best backup software in the world. Zmanda released the capability of backing up open files on Windows to the Amanda community. Community Editions for both Amanda and ZRM were released on Solaris and OpenSolaris. In addition, Zmanda contributed to release of a new version of BackupPC (a disk based backup project, with file level de-duplication).

Looking Forward
Analysts look very favorably on the progress and new product introductions that Zmanda has made in 2008. In a June 4, 2008 article appearing in InfoStor, Eric Burgener of the Taneja Group wrote, “The increase in functionality of open source options is putting more pressure on the commercial backup software vendors to differentiate their offerings and justify their higher prices. The emergence of an open source data-protection product with full commercial backing — Amanda Enterprise — is turning up that heat even more. For IT managers in SME environments, these developments mean that now is a good time to take another look at open source data-protection offerings.”

An IDC Link report also stated that Zmanda is “the only enterprise level backup application to support integration with Amazon Web Services for backup to the Amazon S3 storage. Businesses can use the Zmanda backup software — to backup, archive, and recover their valuable data easily and securely, anytime, via the Internet. This affords businesses without a disaster recovery location a solution where they can leverage the Amazon S3 infrastructure for backup and disaster recovery.”