Data Protection Supplier Diversification

The Bocada Team | August 20, 2016

Bocada’s customers know that technology is a key input to the success of their business. Many IT operations standardize on a single technology vendor to reduce complexity and improve accountability (one throat). Sole sourcing may also provide cost savings in exchange for exclusivity and volume discounts. However, relying on a single technology provider also creates real risks. For example a sole source technology vendor gains significant business leverage due to switching costs – particularly in a contract negotiation. In addition, diversifying technology suppliers improves the long-term health and performance of any technology operation.

There are two critical technology components to any data protection operation: policy management software (backup server) and storage. Each plays a key role in assuring the integrity, efficiency and cost effectiveness of a backup operation. Optimizing performance and cost requires constantly evolving technology operations. Testing new technologies and performing champion-challenger comparisons of backup products and storage is a great way to know that you have the best products and prices.

Bocada’s backup reporting offers IT operations to objectively see the differences in the performance of different technologies. It also offers an independent, third-party validation of the backup server performance. Relying a the policy manager’s reporting capabilities has the same potential conflicts as asking a developer to test their own code. Whether testing new technology from Veeam against an existing NetWorker implementation or comparing CommVault against BackupExec, baseline performance reporting will be required. Bocada provides an enterprise view across all backup and storage products – adding new and different products will not impact the efficiency of your data protection reporting. After you have the data for comparison you can work with your vendor to either improve their performance or lower prices.