Symantec Releases Cloud-grade Storage And Integrated Backup/Dedupe/Storage Appliances

Symantec has released two major components of its appliance strategy for backup and storage. The NetBackup 5200 integrates backup, deduplication and storage on one box; the FileStore N8300 is designed for cloud-scale storage of unstructured data.

The 5200 option complements Symantec's existing NetBackup and PureDisk deduplication software, as well as the NetBackup 5000 and 5020 deduplication appliances announced earlier this year. The FileStore N8300 is a hardware version of its FileStore soft appliance. Symantec also offers SaaS-based backup and storage.

"The primary pain point for us has been our data retention period," said Tommy Meek, systems operations manager for CBeyond, an Internet communications provider for small- and medium-sized businesses. "The real issue was storage capacity. What was our option, purchase more disk or increase tape libraries?"

CBeyond, which just purchased two 5200 appliances (one each for primary and remote data centers), currently uses NetBackup as well as PureDisk deduplication software. Effective deduplication, he said, is a key. "With shorter retention, we ran a greater risk of not being able to recover critical data."

The NetBackup 5200 features built-in source and media deduplication and 32 TB of deduplicated storage per node. It can use either inline (before data is written to disk) or post-process (after written to disk) deduplication methods.The 5200s, Meek said, will help CBeyond eliminate tape backups. "We want to eliminate the cost of tape maintenance and off-site storage completely," he said. The move to appliance-based backup, deduplication and storage was based on ease of implementation.

The FileStore N8300 is a NAS appliance built for cloud and large-capacity enterprise environments. "Enterprises need scale and performance for new workloads, such as digital media, cloud and virtualization," said Yogesh Agrawal, VP of Symantec's FileStore Product Group. "85 percent of data is unstructured. They need to manage growth and cost."

The N8300 can scale capacity up to 1.4 PB; Symantec claims it gains linear performance with the addition of each up to six nodes. It makes optimal use of disk space, avoiding fragmented "islands of data," Agrawal said, as it can scale independently in performance and storage capacity, so for example, enterprises do not have to purchase additional storage because their compute capacity can't support their existing environment.

The appliance includes on-board Symantec AV scanning and Storage Foundation data tiering technology, so organizations can make cost effective decisions on the type of storage that is used for particular data classifications. The N8300 fully integrates with NetBackup, as well as Symantec's Enterprise Vault data archiving product.

The 4-U NetBackup 5200 is priced at $59,995 per node. The FileStore N8300, also a 4-U appliance, costs $109,000 for a "typical" two node, 48 TB configuration.