Achieve an 80% Reduction in Backup OPEX Costs; Interview with Symantec Sr Product Director Simon Jelley Part I
Symantec's announcement that it intends to reduce operational expenses (OPEX) associated with backup by up to 80% over the next 3-5 years is a pretty aggressive goal. It is only when one looks at the problem areas within companies and the new features found in NetBackup 7.5 that it becomes clear that achieving these savings are within any company's reach.
Today, I start a two-part interview series with Symantec's Senior Director of Product Management, Simon Jelley, where we discuss the details on how organizations can leverage Symantec to achieve an 80% reduction in their backup and recovery OPEX costs.
Jerome: Symantec has been a leader in backup for years and the dominant player in a space with many players. But as customer environments have become more complex, so have their backup and data protection needs. To solve that problem, Symantec has taken significant steps to integrate and offer data protection as a single solution. What led to Symantec to focus on this as an initiative?
Simon: There are really two takeaways from our conversations with customers over the past few years that led us to this point. One was just the sheer complexity that customers are seeing in their environments, particularly with the onset of virtualization.
Typically customers are not protecting their environment with one solution. They usually have a few with many using at least three different data protection products.
Further, a company might have a separate solution to support an application running a database on Oracle or SQL Server, and this might be separate from their standard streaming-based backup tools like NetBackup. Then they might also add another one for virtual environments. So we are trying to help reduce the complexity of managing multiple data protection solutions and, more importantly, use one product with one management front end.
The other factor is the ongoing trend of budget pressure, and trying to do more with less. If you could cut these three or more solutions down to just one, there will ultimately be less operational cost in terms of the number of teams and the time required to manage backup. Further, this reduces the amount of training they need and they only have to go to one place to do recovery.
Jerome: In your Feb 6, 2012, press release, Symantec announced its intent to reduce the operational costs associated with backup and recovery by up to 80 percent. How did you arrive at that number?
Simon: The biggest trend driving customers into point solutions is virtualization. As we dove into this space, we saw that our customers need to protect those virtual environments and it became obvious that we needed to do a better job of making sure customers are educated that the data protection solutions they already use could protect their virtual environments as well.
Simply using their existing backup software and adopting a unified approach to data protection for their virtual environment should drive at least a 50 percent reduction in the number of people needed to support backup. We also realized that organizations could drive even more efficiencies by eliminating application-specific data protection products for the likes of Microsoft Exchange, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
Finally by adding more "self service" features to our existing data protection solutions, we could free up 60 to 70 percent of the routine work that a backup admin has to do day-to-day. These are the types of features we are moving toward implementing into NetBackup to achieve this 80 percent reduction over that three to five years.
Jerome: Are there other operating costs you are targeting, too?
Simon: There is a lot of waste in training people to manage multiple solutions. If you can get to one, it is much simpler. Reducing the number of people involved in the restore process, and the time it takes to do the restore, is definitely a key metric as well. Overall, we are looking at what is required to operate and maintain an environment.
This is why you now see turnkey solutions from Symantec like our appliances. We have also made ongoing maintenance simpler with features like "call home" and "auto update" on those appliances.
Jerome: Is there a way for customers to benchmark how much time they are spending on these functions?
Simon: Customers can certainly look at how much time they are spending on training, and then how much time they cumulatively invest in managing the multiple data protection solutions they have across their organization.
They should also evaluate how much time they spend on doing installs and updates as compared to using turnkey solutions like our appliances.
Finally, we recommend organizations examine how much time it takes, and how complex it is, to perform recoveries using multiple solutions versus how long it takes to manage and do recoveries using a single solution.
In Part 2 of my interview with Symantec Sr Director of Product Mgt, Simon Jelley, we discuss what enterprises can do today to prepare for the changes that will be driven by single-point integration in their data protection solutions.
Today, I start a two-part interview series with Symantec's Senior Director of Product Management, Simon Jelley, where we discuss the details on how organizations can leverage Symantec to achieve an 80% reduction in their backup and recovery OPEX costs.
Jerome: Symantec has been a leader in backup for years and the dominant player in a space with many players. But as customer environments have become more complex, so have their backup and data protection needs. To solve that problem, Symantec has taken significant steps to integrate and offer data protection as a single solution. What led to Symantec to focus on this as an initiative?
Simon: There are really two takeaways from our conversations with customers over the past few years that led us to this point. One was just the sheer complexity that customers are seeing in their environments, particularly with the onset of virtualization.
Typically customers are not protecting their environment with one solution. They usually have a few with many using at least three different data protection products.
Further, a company might have a separate solution to support an application running a database on Oracle or SQL Server, and this might be separate from their standard streaming-based backup tools like NetBackup. Then they might also add another one for virtual environments. So we are trying to help reduce the complexity of managing multiple data protection solutions and, more importantly, use one product with one management front end.
The other factor is the ongoing trend of budget pressure, and trying to do more with less. If you could cut these three or more solutions down to just one, there will ultimately be less operational cost in terms of the number of teams and the time required to manage backup. Further, this reduces the amount of training they need and they only have to go to one place to do recovery.
Jerome: In your Feb 6, 2012, press release, Symantec announced its intent to reduce the operational costs associated with backup and recovery by up to 80 percent. How did you arrive at that number?
Simon: The biggest trend driving customers into point solutions is virtualization. As we dove into this space, we saw that our customers need to protect those virtual environments and it became obvious that we needed to do a better job of making sure customers are educated that the data protection solutions they already use could protect their virtual environments as well.
Simply using their existing backup software and adopting a unified approach to data protection for their virtual environment should drive at least a 50 percent reduction in the number of people needed to support backup. We also realized that organizations could drive even more efficiencies by eliminating application-specific data protection products for the likes of Microsoft Exchange, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
Finally by adding more "self service" features to our existing data protection solutions, we could free up 60 to 70 percent of the routine work that a backup admin has to do day-to-day. These are the types of features we are moving toward implementing into NetBackup to achieve this 80 percent reduction over that three to five years.
Jerome: Are there other operating costs you are targeting, too?
Simon: There is a lot of waste in training people to manage multiple solutions. If you can get to one, it is much simpler. Reducing the number of people involved in the restore process, and the time it takes to do the restore, is definitely a key metric as well. Overall, we are looking at what is required to operate and maintain an environment.
This is why you now see turnkey solutions from Symantec like our appliances. We have also made ongoing maintenance simpler with features like "call home" and "auto update" on those appliances.
Jerome: Is there a way for customers to benchmark how much time they are spending on these functions?
Simon: Customers can certainly look at how much time they are spending on training, and then how much time they cumulatively invest in managing the multiple data protection solutions they have across their organization.
They should also evaluate how much time they spend on doing installs and updates as compared to using turnkey solutions like our appliances.
Finally, we recommend organizations examine how much time it takes, and how complex it is, to perform recoveries using multiple solutions versus how long it takes to manage and do recoveries using a single solution.
In Part 2 of my interview with Symantec Sr Director of Product Mgt, Simon Jelley, we discuss what enterprises can do today to prepare for the changes that will be driven by single-point integration in their data protection solutions.
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