Asigra Delivers Software-Defined Data Protection

Looking to help channel partners reduce cloud backup storage costs and deployment time, Asigra released its Software-Defined Data Protection (SDDP) technology.

The new offering uses commoditized infrastructure and vendor-agnostic technologies to provide scalable and lower-cost cloud backup storage for channel partners. The approach is an alternative to expensive monolithic systems and is expected to speed deployment of cloud-ready storage for service providers.

A key challenge cloud service providers face is the need to buy, manage and maintain more backup storage capacity as data volumes continue to increase.

The Asigra SDDP architecture—incorporating the Asigra software, operating system, file system, virtualization, database, monitoring and integration layers—is focused on engineering cost reduction for storage system complexities related to backup and recovery. This includes the problems of integration, troubleshooting, fixes, patches, installation setup time and the requirements for a highly skilled staff.

“We wanted to solve the problem in the data protection and recovery vertical specifically so we created a software-defined approach,” said Eran Farajun, executive vice president at Asigra. “Most of the partners use traditional monolithic disk arrays from the usual suspects, including EMC, HP and Netapp, Hitachi, and Dell.”

SDDP shifts control of the backup environment from hardware to software to remove physical cost limitations, said Asigra. Cost-savings benefits include reduced backup vault integration time from up to four days to one hour, faster time to market with auto-configuration and deployment, single-pane-of-glass management and redundant architecture for high availability.

The Asigra SDDP can be installed on commoditized hardware, an existing virtual farm (by allocating one virtual machine for the installation) or in a third-party cloud. Asigra provides full support for the backup software stack.

The company estimates the SDDP platform, when installed on commoditized servers and storage, could save 50 percent in a typical OS and file system configuration. The SDDP is available via download or a USB stick at no cost to Asigra partners.

“Service providers struggling to keep pace with runaway backup storage growth now have a new cost-cutting weapon in their arsenal,” Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, said in a statement. “At a minimum, Asigra’s approach to Software Defined Data Protection is an industry first, but with the potential to cut costs in half, it has the ability to reset how secondary storage is architected, packaged, marketed and consumed.”

Asigra’s channel partners were looking for help to lower their backend infrastructure costs for delivering cloud-based services. The SDDP addresses the cost of traditional storage systems, while reducing the risks and costs related to hardware, software, file systems, operations and human capital, said Asigra.

“This is the first time in the industry that a backup software vendor also supports the entire stack of underlying infrastructure software required to operate the application,” said Farajun.
After Asigra released its Recovery License Model (RLM) to the channel last year, partners still had big costs related to storage, and asked the software provider if it could help them lower the cost of their backend storage infrastructure. Although Asigra isn’t in the storage business and is a backup software provider, the company decided to tackle the challenge for a few reasons.

With 100 percent of its sales through the channel, Asigra aimed to solve its partners’ cost challenges to free up more dollars for marketing and sales.

“We want to do whatever we can to make our partners more compelling and competitive in the marketplace,” said Farajun. “If we can help them free up dollars spent on disk storage systems today and reallocate that into marketing and sales so they can generate demand and close business, then we believe they will buy more Asigra licenses down the road.”

Gina Roos, a Channel Insider contributor, specializes in technology and the channel.