Software Defined Data Protection Vision

Behind the company’s initiative is a new software-driven architecture which is being introduced for the first time at the Asigra Partner Summit in Toronto. Asigra SDDP architecture is focused on engineering cost reduction for today’s storage system complexities as they relate to backup and recovery. This includes the problems of integration, troubleshooting, fixes, patches, installation setup time and the requirements for highly skilled hardware and operating system staff. It will also tackle the inflexibility and costs of traditional storage systems, reducing the risks and costs related to hardware, software, file systems, operations and human capital.

“Our vision for a user-centric backup infrastructure is one that disintermediates expensive storage software stacks that are coupled tightly with expensive hardware. This provides a software defined option for service providers that helps to further control backup infrastructure costs and management concerns,” said David Farajun, CEO, Asigra. “From the standpoint of system flexibility, this is a fundamental shift away from traditional storage solutions as it directly addresses concerns around storage flexibility and efficiency. The idea will drive more than system redesign - it will expand our relationships with service providers as we help them to better deliver and serve their customers with cost effective, software defined data protection alternatives.”

“Service providers struggling to keep pace with runaway backup storage growth now have a new cost cutting weapon in their arsenal,” said Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “At a minimum, Asigra’s approach to Software Defined Data Protection is an industry first, but with the potential to cut costs in half, it has the ability to reset how secondary storage is architected, packaged, marketed and consumed.”

Software Defined Data Protection shifts control of the backup environment from hardware to software to remove physical cost limitations. This creates a backup platform that is more flexible, efficient and application aware. Asigra’s software-defined data protection strategy complements its widely deployed cloud backup platform which has an installed base of more than one million customer sites. Forthcoming solutions will optimize deployments in public, private or hybrid cloud backup installations across physical, data center IaaS or 3rd party cloud environments. This approach will further disintermediate the entire software stack and file system configuration costs up to 50% and provide direct cost reduction advantages that include:
• Reductions in backup vault integration time from 3 to 4 days to 1 hour
• Faster time to market with auto-configuration and deployment
• Support for large data sets and file various sizes
• Single pane of glass management for ease of administration
• Redundant architecture for high availability
• Built-in multi-tenancy for telco-level scalability per account/multi-accounts
• Phone/Web/On-premise service/support per agreement
• 100% Asigra accountability and support for backup software stack
• Push-button installation for skilled human capital savings

“Data volumes continue to rise, requiring service providers to purchase, manage and maintain more and more backup storage capacity. This has put significant strain on the industry to lower costs and avoid having to raise prices,” said Terry Fields, President, Yotta280. “Asigra Software Defined Data Protection levels the cost structure as much as 50% and this is sending shockwaves through the backup community. Asigra has listened to partner concerns and this innovation will improve the competitive positioning of its partners and allow the reallocation of resources for sales and marketing.”

“Asigra Software Defined Data Protection furthers the innovation the company has shown over the years in bringing industry firsts to the backup space,” said Mark Saville, Director for OnDemand Recovery. “This has real potential to significantly drive down hardware costs without sacrificing service quality, making it a transformative technology to empower the Asigra ecosystem.”

"This has the potential to turn backup resource planning on its head," said Dave Simpson, Senior Analyst, Storage for 451 Research. "It provides for new innovations in backup system design and supports service providers with a cost effective platform they can add to their toolkit."

Asigra SDDP will be a free download at no cost to Asigra partners and provide a competitive reset that puts partners in a much stronger position against regional and global competitors. The technology is expected to drive significant differentiation and unique value to help win more business, significantly lower operational costs, simplify management and speed time to market for new or existing providers upgrading their backup infrastructure. The technology aligns with Asigra Cloud Backup™ to provide comprehensive data protection that is secure, efficient, automated and integrated for simple management and assured data recovery. The company is already engaged with multiple prospective OEM system vendors who are interested in offering SDDP to drive sales of their component hardware products.