Bakbone slips disk into product range

Responding to the inevitable, backup software supplier BakBone is extending its NetVault data backup products to disk as well as tape, building on capabilities it has already introduced, such as NetVault: FastRecover.

The company has said it will introduce an Open Data Protection platform later this year, "extending the company’s focus from traditional tape-based data protection solutions to disk-based technology."

It's increasingly seeing customers adopt server virtualisation - for which tape-based backup is not ideal - and also look cloudwards where, it's variously and generally assumed, tape has little or no role in protecting data.

The idea is for Bakbone to remain the single focus for data protection for its customers, with data flowing to disk or tape - or cloud - targets, and being deduplicated by third-party or BakBone technology.

BakBone says that "by enhancing and replacing components of its virtual tape library with new products and technologies that work with third party applications, BakBone is putting more power into the hands of its users... Customers can leverage existing applications and infrastructure, resulting in fewer systems used to manage the same data multiple times." It wants to float to the top of the data protection heap, even if that means sacrificing use of its own products inside the data protection stack.

It is promising "multiple releases to the market around its new platform and [will] push its product suite to new levels and into new territory."

Perhaps we're going to see an indexing, search and eDiscovery/compliance archive offering take shape?

Jeff Drescher, BakBone's marketing VP, said Bakbone will continue to supply its legacy products but: "BakBone’s new combined suite of disk-based data protection solutions now will allow customers to flexibly protect and make their most critical server and application data available, regardless of whether the data resides in physical, virtual or cloud environments.” ®