Storage Management Strategies for the CIO
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Features and functions
A slick sales experience and a painless deployment will fade fast if the product ultimately doesn’t deliver as promised. For a backup application, that means satisfying specific needs and meeting current and future requirements.
IBM’s TSM topped the enterprise app charts with a product features category score of 6.66 that edged out NetBackup (6.59) and CommVault Systems Inc. (6.48); CommVault scored highest for three statements related to management features, file system backup and archiving. But all the enterprise products fared well, with those three leaders closely followed by EMC NetWorker (6.41) and HP Data Protector (6.21) for a remarkably strong showing. It’s clear the spec sheets of enterprise backup applications are very well appointed with needed features.
The midrange products didn’t fare quite as well, with the exception of EMC Avamar, which notched four 7.00-plus statement scores on the way to a sweep and a 6.79 for the category, which handily outpaced Symantec Backup Exec’s 6.01. Avamar’s impressive run through the product features category was highlighted by a staggering 7.37 for a new statement, “This product works well with virtualized servers.”
Day in, day out
Product features are fine . . . as long as the product continues to chug away without stumbling too often. In the product reliability rating category, we capture impressions related to things like platform support,
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software bugs, patching and upgrades.
The enterprise apps were all closely bunched in this category, with NetBackup’s 6.34 nudging out HP Data Protector (6.27), which ended up in a virtual tie with IBM TSM (6.26). But CommVault, with a 6.13, and EMC NetWorker, at 6.05, also scored very well. Top statement scores were also distributed, with CommVault getting one, IBM two and Symantec the remaining five.
STORAGE/SEARCHSTORAGE.COM BACKUP & RECOVERY SOFTWARE QUALITY AWARDS VI:
ENTERPRISE RANKINGS
Enlarge STORAGE/SEARCHSTORAGE.COM BACKUP & RECOVERY SOFTWARE QUALITY AWARDS VI: ENTERPRISE
RANKINGS diagram.
It was another story for the midrange group as EMC Avamar scored highest for all statements to win the category by nearly a full point, 6.83 to Symantec Backup Exec’s 5.84. All the scores were solid in the category, but Avamar stood out with a 7.20 for platform support and scores of 6.95 for both “The product meets my service-level requirement” and “Vendor provides comprehensive upgrade guidance.”
This was first published in June 2011
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