Backup Central

All -
I'm aware of the capabilities of a VTL and their advantages when they were originally introduced. As time has passed various software vendors (eg. Symantec, Commvault, etc.) have introduced a lot of those features within the software itself (B2D, data de-dup, etc.) So the question is - Why buy a VTL today? What is the advantage? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

All -
I'm aware of the capabilities of a VTL and their advantages when they were originally introduced. As time has passed various software vendors (eg. Symantec, Commvault, etc.) have introduced a lot of those features within the software itself (B2D, data de-dup, etc.) So the question is - Why buy a VTL today? What is the advantage? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

VTL is just an emulation of a tape-like storage for integration with existing tape backup software. Its advantageous when you want to use existing tape software but don't want the problems of tapes (like sequential reads or slow recovery).

D2D software are aware that the target is a disk and make optimizations.

The #1 (or darn close) reason for using a vendor's 'disk device' solution is to have the ability to recover from the same device you're writing to - while still writing to said device (you get more time). But the license for this can be pricey, and nice add-ons like de-duplication aren't available in some cases without an external vendor.

The #1 reason (today) for using a VTL instead, is built in de-duplication (you get more space - usually). But, a virtual tape is still a tape to the backup software; You can only read or write during any one 'session' with that tape.

Both methods are viable. It's just a matter of choice (possibly including which solution is cheaper for you, depending on vendor relations).

--TSK

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Tim Kimball
http://sungak.net