CA unifies data protection

A new approach to data protection and security has just emerged that is being touted as a means of unifying the multiple stands of this area in ways that make protecting virtual and cloud systems easy and effective.

The new solution comes from US big systems vendor, CA, in the form of its new arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP). This is designed to provide cost-effective backup and what the company is branding Assured Recovery across mixed IT environments – helping businesses boost the availability of critical systems.

UDP is a transformative enhancement to the CA arcserve data protection software portfolio and an alternative to the cost and complexity of deploying multiple point solutions. A new unified architecture and recovery point server drive a full range of highly efficient data protection capabilities for physical and virtual environments through a simple, web-based user console. It provides more than 30 new features to give businesses and service providers precise and flexible functionality to meet stringent service level and recovery objectives.

“CA arcserve UDP is the most significant release of arcserve to date. Architected from the ground up to deliver data protection simplicity, CA arcserve UDP allows businesses to reduce complexity and mitigate rising costs without sacrificing functionality. Simply put, it renders ‘point solutions’ obsolete,” said Mike Crest, general manager, Data Management, CA Technologies.

It is designed with ease-of-use as a fundamental requirement. A unified architecture and single web-based user interface integrate data protection for both virtual and physical systems. It can, for example, offer greater efficiency and quicker time-to-value with a broad spectrum of enterprise-level functionality – including image and file-based backup, tape support, replication, and high availability – in one solution.

Workflow-based Protection Plans that let users `dial in’ the right level of protection within minutes, five solution editions that help customers buy the right level of protection, flexible pricing on a per-terabyte or per-socket basis for physical and virtual systems, and a single solution for Microsoft Windows, Linux and UNIX systems are among some of its other features.

"The concept of unified data protection brings significant value to enterprises that are struggling to meet increasingly stringent RPOs and RTOs across physical, virtual and cloud environments," said Eric Burgener, research director, Storage Practice, IDC. "Economics will drive data protection consolidation as administrators look to simplify how they handle backup, recovery, and business continuity requirements in today's heterogeneous world."

At the heart of the unified CA arcserve UDP is the new resource saving recovery point server (RPS), combining global source-side de-duplication, integrated block-level replication, AES 256-bit level encryption, and cascading retention policies. CA arcserve UDP uses the RPS and other technical advancements to deliver extended virtual machine protection with agent-less protection for VMware and now Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

It also provides Assured Recovery with local and virtual remote standby and automated, non-disruptive disaster recovery testing and reporting, continuous, full-system replication and high availability for near-instant recovery of an entire system – including business applications, files and data on both virtual and physical systems – and broad support of major cloud platforms to allow easy recovery, migration or replication of complete systems, applications or data from cloud to cloud.