Data Backup Digest

Druva are a data protection company based in Pune, India and Sunnyvale, California. They have been established since 2008 and count customers such as Nikon, Dell and NASA amongst their clientele. The company are known primarily for their cloud protection and backup for computers, laptops and mobile devices.

However, they have now announced a backup product for servers called Phoenix. Currently, a lot of server backup is handled quite archaically, despite cloud backup becoming extremely popular in the individual consumer market. Server backups are usually stored on tape, which is a format that comes with a lot of hassle and cost. The tapes have to be maintained, packaged and shipped to offsite storage, that storage space then paid for and then retrieved if required.

“The traditional backup-to-tape-to-archive process is expensive, resource-intensive and subject to error, with 75 percent of organizations experiencing tape failure in the last year. The cloud is clearly a better choice, but current cloud-based solutions have serious limitations ranging from slow speeds and limited data retention to failure to utilize the distributed nature of the cloud to perform large-scale backups,” said Jaspreet Singh, CEO of Druva.

Although some IT teams may prefer to keep using tape because it’s what they’re used to, Singh claims that some customers have been asking for a server backup solution from Druva. However, they initially resisted because they didn’t think it was something that could do efficiently. That’s set to change with the release of Phoenix.

Druva have created a deduplication system that means the size of the backup is kept to a minimum. They’re also employing the use of Amazon Web Services, a storage facility that offers low costs that continue to drop. While the company acknowledge that user data is growing significantly as storage costs drop, Druva believe that their model will develop over time.

Phoenix brings together hot, warm and cold backup and archiving processes. All of this can be done digitally in the cloud, unlike tape where it’d be impossible. Another benefit over tape is that data can be restored much quicker – users won’t have to physically retrieve a tape, but they can just call it down from the cloud.

Phoenix is unique in that it only charges user for the first time that the data is backed up. Any subsequent changes to that existing data will not be charged. Phoenix is available for use right now and is currently aimed at remote back office backup, with expansion into the data centre market to follow in the coming months.

While tape has long had a place in the server backup market, Druva are hoping they’ll be able to move the market on with Phoenix. Cloud has become more widely accepted in the consumer market and Druva are banking on the fact that this acceptance will come over to server backup.

More information about Druva Phoenix – “radically simple cloud backup and archiving for servers” – can be found on the firm’s official website. You’ll also be able to chat with product experts who can advise you further.