NetApp Partners With Backup Vendors

July 19th, 2006: NetApp announces plans to integrate their VTL technology with backup vendor solutions.

NetApp has revealed it plans to incorporate the backup solutions into its VTL Shadow Tape technology. This technology will specifically integrate with Veritas NetBackup, a backup solution from Symantec and backup technologies from BakBone, CommVault, and Syncsort. The new feature allows backup administrators to store a ‘hidden’ copy of a backup set on NearStore VTL even after the backup application has called for it to be written to tape.

“NetApp and Symantec continue to deliver innovative and flexible data protection solutions that address customers’ needs and demonstrate the value of a leading backup software provider collaborating with a leader in storage systems innovation”, says Matt Kixmoeller, senior director of product management for NetBackup at Symantec. “The new Shadow Tape feature extends the value of our customers’ investments in NetBackup software by automating the rapid retrieval of backup data from disk”.

Shadow Tape has been around since NearStore VTL was first introduced, but without the application integration, hidden backups could only be accessed manually. “Backup administrators don’t like manual processes”, Notes Krish Padmanabhan, general manager for NetApp’s heterogeneous data protection business unit. “They like things to be automated”. Symantec and others have already begun doing the integration work, and Padmanabhan expects it to be completed in the second half of this year.

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