Tolly Group Tested Quantum vmPRO Solution for VMware

Quantum Corp. announced the results of industry analyst firm Tolly Group‘s evaluation of its vmPRO 4000 appliance and vmPRO software for VM data protection.

Tolly Group’s testing demonstrated the ease-of-implementation, advanced functionality, and simplicity of vmPRO solutions. Tolly also tested these products for their ability to optimize disk and network I/O for any backup target and provide a superior VM backup solution for SMB, midrange and enterprise customers.

Key Findings
Tolly Group tested vmPRO functionality in both local and remote deployment use cases. Key findings include:

• Ease-of-Use and Management: vmPRO solutions offer integration and flexible accessibility to storage administrators. A simple, easy-to-use dashboard allows for quick, at-a-glance status updates of current operations and system performance. The dashboard enables users to manually trigger backups and view the data reduction provided in real time by Progressive Optimization, the source data reduction technology in vmPRO.
• Data Reduction: DXi deduplication operates across the entire backup set and typically reduces disk capacity requirements by 90 percent or more when combined with the space savings from vmPRO’s Progressive Optimization and changed block tracking.
• DXi Site Replication: When multiple vmPRO 4000s are deployed in a remote office scenario, administrators can leverage DXi-Series site replication to deploy master VM templates, keep distributed backup sets, or replicate and recover VMs between geographically-disparate locations for disaster recovery.
• Ease of Integration: vmPRO integrates seamlessly into existing data protection deployments and can directly and natively access data at both the backup source and destination, offering alternate methods of backup, restore, and replication.
• Optimized Disk and Network I/O: vmPRO provides advanced end-to-end disk and network I/O optimization, with inherent flexibility and scalability for deployments ranging from SMBs to enterprises.
• Flexibility: vmPRO’s SmartView feature provides an intuitive method of presenting source data for backup, easing integration with third-party backup applications. Data is offered up by a network share in real time and can be used natively by backup applications. It provides greater implementation flexibility than virtual-only backup solutions, enabling tape archiving as well as policies for both physical and virtual infrastructure.

vmPRO Solution Feature Testing
Tolly Group tested all of vmPRO’s core features, which facilitate both physical and VM backups while providing advancements in data reduction, site replication and backup visibility.

• SmartView: SmartView presents a Native File System (NFS) view of all virtual machines in a backup group and provides administrators quick access to whole VMs and file systems for individual backup, restore, and replication operations. This intuitive method of presenting source data for backup lays the foundation for vmPRO’s integration with third-party backup applications and results in faster recovery times.
• SmartMotion: vmPRO’s embedded backup application provides a simple interface which enables administrators to configure storage and define a backup schedule for virtual environments.
• Progressive Optimization: Progressive Optimization reduces initial backup volumes by up to 75 percent, speeding backup and reducing loads on servers, networks, and storage. Progressive Optimization works with DXi deduplication to provide industry-leading data reduction.

Integrated Protection for Virtual Environments
Quantum vmPRO solutions provide high-performance backup and multi-stage storage optimization with deduplication. The vmPRO 4000 appliance offers all-in-one protection for virtual machines in SMBs and remote offices, combining backup software and storage that leverages deduplication to retain months of data. vmPRO software works with DXi appliances and backup applications to integrate VM backup and recovery into data protection processes. All of the necessary software licenses are included in the base price of a vmPRO solution to deliver market-leading value.

Kevin Tolly, founder, Tolly Group: "With its extensive functionality, coupled with the intuitive configuration and management, vmPRO solutions provide a solid foundation for any organization looking to extend data protection to virtual environments or optimize existing disaster recovery objectives."

Henrik Rosendahl, vice president, Virtual Solutions, Quantum: "Tolly Group’s rigorous testing of Quantum’s vmPRO solutions offers definitive validation of their data protection capabilities for virtual environments. In addition, the data reduction that deduplication enables actually makes it practical to leverage cloud storage for VMs, and this testing demonstrates the potential of vmPRO for simplifying VM protection in emerging cloud implementations."

For a copy of Tolly Group’s report, Quantum vmPRO Data Protection Solution for VMware (you need to register)