Mats,
This all happened roughly 5 years ago so my memory of all the details involving
this issue is a bit faded. My ex boss' idea was to try to reduce data
protection costs by standardizing on CommVault or NetWorker for both sides of
Temple University's enterprise (the university and health system). It didn't
take long for us to realize that changing from CommVault to NetWorker on our
health system side would be far more painful than changing from NetWorker to
CommVault in our university's side. I don't recall if we wrote up anything of a
formal nature, but it did not take long before my boss lost interest in this
initiative for the reasons I previously cited.
I don't have current details for our health system, but back than, they were
backing up approximately 4 x the number of servers via CommVault than we were
via NetWorker. As I recall back than, they had 12 media servers (i.e., storage
nodes) whereas we only had 2 storage nodes. The Temple University Health System
operates a large urban acute care hospital with a regional trauma center, a
cancer center, two or three community hospitals, and several other sites
throughout the Philadelphia region, so I seriously doubt they would remain a
CommVault customer if there was any fear that it would not meet their data
protection needs. As is probably the case with any healthcare origination that
operates acute care hospitals and other patient treatment facilities, the
Temple University Health System has a very short RTO because much of their data
literally is life or death if it becomes lost or inaccessible and as far as I
know, they meet their RTO objectives during their DR tests.
As for scalability, I know full well that NetWorker is highly scalable from my
own experience working with it over the years and my interactions with numerous
other EMC customers. I also like that that since EMC acquired NetWorker from
Legato, it continues to evolve NetWorker into an even better and more reliable
product. EMC is continuing to improve NetWorker and integrate it into its
greater suite of BRS products. I assume that over the past 5 years that
CommVault has undergone some interesting changes too for the better, and
considering that the IT infrastructure of Temple University Health System
remains much larger than the University's side that CommVault is nicely
scalable.
One thing to be aware of, especially for new IT organizations or those that are
small but expect rapid growth, is that the selection of any data protection
technology (hardware and software) is a decision not to be taken lightly. I
suspect that whatever backup software solution an IT organization goes with,
the commitment to it will last many years because switching to a competing
product is not for the faint of heart, even setting aside financial
considerations. The only compelling reason I can think of to do such a switch
in an established organization regardless of direction is where a company gets
taken over by another company and both have different backup solutions, but
intend to keep one group to manage and maintain them. All things being equal,
the logical thing to do is to make the switch in the direction that causes the
least operational pain. Of course, all things are often not equal.
The situation here at the University is a bit unique compared to other
enterprises where they have separate, but large divisions. Here, the health
system and university are separate corporate entities (both non-profit),
although both are ultimately controlled by the same Board of Trustees and both
entities has its own CIO (but we do share some IT resources).
A good idea for anyone on this list who is considering phasing out NetWorker in
favor of another product is to arrange to meet with your local EMC sales team
to see their presentation on where EMC envisions NetWorker going over the next
few years, as well as their overall vision of BRS in general. Then do the same
with the sales teams for the competing products you are considering so you can
evaluate not only the actual data protection products, but the long-range
visions behind them. Also look at training options and the annual renewal costs
for the hardware and software involved. Ask yourself, which companies are
offering a comprehensive data protection solution that can grow with your
organization over time, then go from there. As it happens, I just saw EMC's
solutions visions presentations yesterday at the EMC BRS Users Group in
Manhattan, so it is fresh in my mind.
On Mar 14, 2013, at 5:02 AM, Mats Atari <mats.atari AT GMAIL DOT COM> wrote:
> Hi Stan!
>
> Would be great to hear if you found any pro's/con's between
> Commvault/NetWorker in your evaluation? Differences in scalability, resource
> usage, manageability/administration, functionality, etc...?
>
> If this is shareable, it would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Mats
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