Gartner storage 2011

1/31/2011

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Disk-Ba…

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Disk-Based Backup/Recovery
28 January 2011 Dave Russell, Sheila C hilds, Alan Dayley Gartner RAS C ore Research Note G00209399

While backup is among the oldest, most performed tasks in the data center, the industry is undergoing significant change as organizations accelerate new technology adoption and show apropensity to implement new solutions, in some cases from vendors that are emerging or new to the backup market.

What You Need to Know
This research is the inaugural version of a new Magic Quadrant that looks beyond enterprise software-only backup vendors and their solutions, and places a new emphasis on evaluating a broader set of vendors that offers disk-based data capture and data recoverycapabilities. Backup and recovery is one of the oldest and most frequently performed operations in the data center. Despite the long timeline associated with backup, the practice has seen a number of changes (such as new recovery techniques and a new, expanded set of vendors to consider) and challenges (such as how to protect server virtualized environments, very large databases, remote offices,and desktops and laptops) in recent years. Gartner end-user inquiry call volume regarding backup continues to be high every year, and has been rising at about 20% each year for the past three years. Organizations worldwide are seeking ways to easily, quickly and cost-effectively ensure that their data is appropriately protected. Organizations are also voicing the opinion that backup needs toimprove a lot, not just a little. For more research on current backup/recovery challenges, and practical advice on how to address them, see "Best Practices for Addressing the Broken State of Backup" and "Backup and Recovery Optimization and Cost Avoidance." The rising frustration with backup implies that the data protection approaches of the past may no longer suffice in meeting current, much lessfuture, recovery requirements. As such, companies are willing to adopt new technologies and products from new vendors, and have shown an increased willingness to switch backup/recovery providers in order to better meet their increasing service levels. The 2009 trends of incorporating more disk in the recovery process, deploying data deduplication and "treating disk as disk," versus seeking applianceswith a virtual tape library (VTL) interface, not only continued but accelerated in 2010. For a deeper treatment on each of these topics, see:

Strategic Planning A ssumption(s) By 2014, at le ast 30% of organizations will have cha nge d ba ck up ve ndors due to frustration ove r cost, com ple x ity and/or capa bility. By 2014, 80% of the m ark e t will choose a dva nced, disk -base d applia ncesand back up software -only solutions ove r distribute d VTLs. By 2014, de duplication will ce ase to be a vailable as a sta nd-alone; rathe r, it will be com e a fe ature of broa de r data stora ge a nd data m a nage m e nt solutions. Vendors A dded or Dropped W e re vie w and adjust our inclusion crite ria for Ma gic Q ua drants a nd Mark e tScope s as m a rk e ts cha nge . As a re sult of these adjustm e nts, the m ix of ve ndors in any Magic Q ua dra nt or Mark e tScope m a y cha nge ove r tim e . A ve ndor a ppe aring in a Ma gic Q ua drant or Mark e tScope one ye a r and not the ne x t doe s not ne ce ssa rily indicate tha t we have cha nge d our opinion of that ve ndor. This m ay be a re fle ction of a change in the m a rk e t and, therefore, change d e va luation crite ria, or achange of focus by a ve ndor. Evaluation Criteria Definitions

Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and se rvice s offe re d by the ve ndor that com pe te in/se rve the de fine d m a rk e t. This include s curre nt product/se rvice capa bilitie s, quality, fe ature se ts and sk ills, whe the r offe re d na tive ly or

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