Businesses today need backup devices which are easy to install and have a global service and support system. Also, it is important for companies to educate their channel partners so that they can help organizations adopt the best backup solutions available in the market. Amitabh Jacob, Channel Head for India and SAARC region for Symantec discusses the company’s strategy and future trends in an exclusive chat with Channel Times…
Q: How do you see the landscape of backup solutions growing in India?
Jacob: Businesses today are up against the challenge of managing and protecting an ever-increasing digital cosmos. Most enterprises describe their environments as heterogeneous platforms delivering expanding functions. The tension between these platforms and these new demands is intensified by the extreme pace of data growth, along with the specialized and legacy systems that must be brought along.
In this scenario the time available to backup larger sets of data and high density virtual environments has shrunk considerably. Ensuring data is protected and meeting backup windows on a regular basis continues to be major pain points, putting recovery and business continuity at risk. As data stores grow and the value of data increases, the requirement for better backup technologies is being seen. Traditional approaches to data protection no longer cut the mustard and offer organizations limited techniques of reducing complexity or lowering costs. What is needed is an approach that provides organizations with the same visibility into their virtual environment that they have with their physical environment, simplifies both backup and disaster recovery, and offers unmatched recovery capabilities.
Q:How important is backup service for Symantec and how are Symantec’s backup appliances different from traditional backup solutions available in the market?
Jacob: Backup solutions are a significant part of the our solution offerings. We, at Symantec ensure that we keep adapting and reinventing our solutions to match customers’ needs and requirements. Earlier this year, Symantec announced a new approach to delivering better backup to its customers, introducing ground-breaking new features to replace outdated and complicated approaches. Beyond features, Symantec is also providing the market with technologies like purpose-built appliances that combine backup software, servers, storage and de-duplication in a single solution – a key part of our strategy is to drive complexity and costs out of the backup market.
Symantec’s backup appliances are unique to the market. Unlike many solutions which require the IT team to integrate multiple solutions for tape, disk, dedupe, physical, virtual snapshots and backup, Symantec appliances are typically installed in less than 30 minutes and deliver integrated hardware, software and dedupe storage, providing customers with simplicity and performance from one vendor.
Symantec’s backup appliances are built on new, next generation hardware platform and have greater performance. The appliances deliver better reliability, availability, and manageability to further reduce the total cost of ownership. Symantec’s Backup appliances deliver three core values; unites physical and virtual, tackles data growth, and eliminates complexity.
The NetBackup and Backup Exec are a modern approach to backup for organizations of any size. Symantec’s backup appliances deliver an end-to-end integrated backup appliance for servers, storage, and software. Both Backup Exec and NetBackup appliances provide customers with an all-in-one platform that centralizes backup for physical and virtual environments and maximizes performance with end-to-end deduplication – all on a pre-configured device supported by Symantec.
Q:Today there is a need of a simple and cost effective IT support. Are there any turnkey backup solutions available from Symantec which can help customers adopt a new approach towards backup?
Jacob:Symantec provides a one stop solution for all backups whether they are based on tape, disk, or in physical or virtual environments. With our solutions, customers can recover any application or system to a virtual machine whether they have the hardware or not. The two major products from Symantec are Symantec Backup Exec and Symantec Net Backup. These solutions unite the virtual and physical aspects of a traditional backup solution and at the same time reduce the total cost of ownership of a business.
Backup Exec, simplifies disaster recovery by automatically creating a virtual machine when recovery is needed. Backup Exec has eliminated backup management complexity by simplifying the user interface, utilizing insights from millions of users, policies and licensing. This allows IT administrators and SMB owners to have a professional data protection strategy without being backup professionals.
NetBackup dramatically reduces the time it takes to do backups by eliminating the scan to determine file change percentages, leveraging client-side deduplication, and then synthetically constructing a full backup image with full recovery benefits, in the time it takes to do an incremental.
Q: How is Symantec educating its channel partners so that they can help organizations in adopting the best available backup solutions?
Jacob: Symantec is a channel focused company and it is our constant endeavor to engage with, train and equip our partners to enable customers to protect and manage their information. Emerging technologies like cloud and virtualization will significantly influence customer’s IT spending. In such a scenario, it becomes extremely essential for channel partners to broaden their horizons and educate their customers on the benefits of the emerging and disruptive technologies. It is important for partners to move from being just technology generalists to being both solution and market specialist for their customers. With the customers increasingly looking up to partners as IT experts for upcoming solutions and industry knowledge, partners should focus on providing IT solutions that solve their business problems and not just selling point products.
Specializations are the core of Symantec’s channel programs. Symantec has developed the Enhanced Symantec Partner Program which is based on a specialist model; it rewards partner investments for competencies in solution or market segment specializations. The program is designed to help partners build competitive advantage over others in the market, thereby improving recognition and increasing their profitability. Symantec’s specialization programs recognize and train partners in various solution areas and markets that are important to both its partners’ customers and Symantec.