#226 – VAST Data Universal Storage for Data Protection (Sponsored)

In this episode, Chris and Martin discuss data protection on a “vast” scale, with VAST Data VP of Data Protection, George Axberg. VAST has just announced a partnership with Commvault that will integrate Universal Storage with Commvault’s data management solutions. Further data protection vendor partnerships are expected in due course. While the idea of using an all-flash platform for secondary data might seem extreme, the evolution in storage requirements for backup solutions means the performance capabilities offered by all-flash are quickly becoming table stakes.

The impact of ransomware, including the need for fast restore at scale, means legacy disk-based VTLs and PBBAs simply can’t keep up with the demands of the restore process. Universal Storage offers an 8x performance boost on restores compared to write, just at the time the business needs it. What about the cost? As this episode explains, the combination of persistent memory and QLC flash enables VAST to drastically reduce the economics of using all-flash as a backup solution. Data reduction features including “similarity” de-dupe provide further reductions in consumed back-end capacity than is achieved by the data protection software.

However, the Universal Storage offers more than just fast restore, including a single unified namespace, high degree of parallelism and massive scalability. Listen on to hear more details of how things will work.

As discussed in the podcast, we’ve previously reviewed the VAST Data architecture. You can find more on two podcasts here, plus a recent interview with VAST CEO, Renen Hallak:

• Introduction to VAST Data with Howard Marks – Part I
• Introduction to VAST Data with Howard Marks – Part II
• The Data Explosion with VAST Data CEO Renen Hallak

We’ve also written a number of blog posts on VAST:

• VAST Data has Vast Ambitions
• VAST Data goes software only – what does this mean for customers?
• VAST Data launches with new scale-out storage platform

Elapsed Time: 00:38:13

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:50 – VAST now partnering with Commvault
• 00:02:40 – How has data protection changed in 2 decades?
• 00:04:00 – A backup image is a unique version of data, but just a copy
• 00:06:15 – Efficient deduplication has a capacity impact with backup
• 00:07:45 – Similarity can increase de-dupe levels in addition to the backup platform
• 00:09:50 – What is the VAST storage architecture?
• 00:12:00 – Disaggregation provides multiple axes of scalability
• 00:12:45 – VAST offers a 10-year warranty
• 00:15:00 – How is data refresh managed with VTLs and PBBAs?
• 00:17:55 – How could Universal Storage improve existing data protection solutions?
• 00:20:25 – Can data be deduplicated again and again?
• 00:23:20 – Will Universal Storage offer a primary cluster and secondary cluster?
• 00:25:00 – Customers can centralise storage and expose endpoints via S3/HTTP
• 00:27:55 – Space, power and cooling is relevant to the TCO calculation of secondary storage
• 00:31:00 – The value of all-flash in backup/restore is more than $/GB
• 00:33:55 – How will the partnerships evolve?
• 00:37:10 – Wrap Up

• #188 – Is Intel Optane Ready for Primetime?
• #198 – Software-Only Storage Vendors
• #170 – The End of Pure Play Storage Companies

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