Bocada, Quest Software Team on Management for Virtual Environments 
Bocada Inc., a provider of data protection management software and developer of a data protection service management model is partnering with Quest Software to expand support for backups in virtual environments.
Bocada Inc., a provider of data protection management software and developer of a data protection service management model is partnering with Quest Software to expand support for backups in virtual environments.
Quest’s vRanger is built for VMware backup, replication and recovery, and provides visibility into backup results, which can help improve how IT manages capacity and identify bottlenecks during such virtual backups. This can prove a tricky problem as the number of VMs in an organization grows, according to John Maxwell, vice president of Quest’s data protection product management.
Bocada’s Vision data protection service management (DPSM) solution provides in-depth visibility and analysis into VM snapshot and backup activity. These features enable companies to better manage and restore their VMs. Vision offers customers management solutions to help them protect the data in their virtual environments, according to Nancy Hurley, Bocada’s CEO.
Bocada Vision monitors a company’s virtual environment through the lens of data protection, and provides detail about snap activity, backup jobs, recovery points, capacity use and VM performance during backup windows. As VMs proliferate in the organization, this level of information about VM protection is critical to ensure that data is protected and recoverable as it is in the physical environment. Bocada Vision can be used for standalone virtual environments as well as alongside Bocada’s prism solution to support mixed physical / virtual infrastructure environments, Hurley added.
“We are happy to work with Bocada to leverage their knowledge and experience in data protection service management to provide comprehensive analysis on virtual machine backup activity that will greatly benefit our customers,” Quest’s Maxwell said in a statement.
“We recognized again that there was a significant need in the market for a management solution that focused on data protection for virtual environments, and Vision is the first DPSM solution available on the market to address that need,” said Bocada’s Hurley noted.
Inside Bocada’s Virtual Backup Model, Features
Developed in partnership with leading enterprise customers and managed service providers, the Bocada Data Protection Service Management (DPSM) Model is what company officials called “an ITSM-like actionable methodology.”
DPSM, which aims to enhance the delivery of data protection services; the model outlines a multiphased approach and Best Practices to assess the overall data protection delivery infrastructure effectiveness, improve the ability to deliver quality data protection and recovery services, publish the results to customers and continuously advance the effectiveness of data protection operations, while lowering costs.
By following the DPSM model, users can assess the overall effectiveness of the backup infrastructure, improve the ability to deliver quality data protection and recovery services, confidently meet backup service level agreements (SLAs), improve the ability to respond to backup compliance audits, Hurley noted.
Bocada Vision is designed to let IT quickly and easily assess recoverability of VMs. In virtual environments, it can be difficult to determine the best recovery points or if the data that was backed up is valid. Bocada Vision helps validates snap, replication and backup success, and also can pinpoint the best recovery points and provide configuration information of the VM at the time of the snap/backup. This capability means that if VMs need to be recovered to a different asset all critical information is readily available ensuring quick recoveries.
Bocada Vision also provides:
Auto-zones all VM and data-store configuration from vCenter
Protected Asset report shows how VMs are protected
Technologies to easily identify best recovery points
Methods to quickly uncover unprotected VMs
On initial release, Bocada Vision is integrated with vCenter and provides analysis for VMWare vDataRecovery, Quest vRangerPro, Veeam Backup and Recovery and Symantec NetBackup 7.1, and will add support for other VM platforms in the future, according to the company blog post on the product.
