CommVault Simplifies Recovery Management in Tiered Storage Environments

June 7, 2006

-- RecoveryDirector First to Integrate Multi-vendor Snapshot and Backup into Single Workflow with One-step Recovery --

'CommVault Simplifies Recovery Management in Tiered Storage Environments

Oceanport, NJ — June 7, 2006 — Companies seeking to maximize value from investments in tiered storage have focused on establishing data protection and archive tiers, but the real win may lie with near-line recovery tiers and their potential to dramatically improve Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objective (RTO/RPO) service levels. CommVault®, a leading provider of Unified Data Management™ solutions, today announced an advance in data recovery management with the availability of breakthrough features for its QiNetix 6.1 Unified Data Management suite. The new feature set, called RecoveryDirector 6.1, combines certain functionality of the QuickRecovery and Galaxy Backup and Recovery software products, thereby enabling storage administrators to simply and seamlessly manage snapshot and backup data across the continuum of protection, recovery and archive tiers.

With RecoveryDirector, enterprises with storage area networks (SANs) will be able to increase the business value of tiered storage by creating online 'recovery images' that extend traditional backup methods and expand data protection capabilities. RecoveryDirector extends the benefits of QuickRecovery by enabling storage administrators to simplify recovery of data from multiple recovery points, reduce or eliminate backup windows, and improve RTO/RPO service levels.

RecoveryDirector's features bring the power of Unified Data Management to high-availability SAN environments with multiple tiers of data under management, providing a single view of the data protection environment and a set of common management policies that enable administrators to move data appropriately via workflows and policies. Data can be recovered quickly based on its value to the business, ensuring quick recovery from any tier of storage when problems occur. Moving beyond the Recovery Point data protection offered by QuickRecovery, RecoveryDirector adds sequencing, workflow and policy management that unifies data protection at all levels of an enterprise.

Single Workflow, One-step Recovery
Integrating CommVault ProxyHost, Image, QuickRecovery and QSnap components, CommVault RecoveryDirector combines backup and snapshot management into a logical workflow. With this capability, users can easily manage concurrent multiple point-in-time snapshots and backup sets, improve resource utilization and eliminate duplicate operations.

For enterprises seeking to simplify use of device-embedded snapshot capabilities, RecoveryDirector manages a wide variety of snapshot technologies including those offered by Data Domain, Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, NetApp, Xiotech and others. RecoveryDirector simplifies and automates the process of creating snapshot images and online recovery volumes for immediate recovery from data loss, large database corruption and e-mail virus attacks.

"As enterprises invest in storage tiers, particularly mid-range tiers, we believe IT should think about the value of establishing a recovery tier to increase the business value of data protection and archive tiers," said Arun Taneja, founder and principal analyst, Taneja Group. "CommVault's RecoveryDirector solution includes support for recovery tiers that will enable IT managers to shift data management efforts away from a narrow focus on backup process to the more vital issue of managing data to ensure recovery."

"We use CommVault QuickRecovery to snap and replicate images supporting our Exchange and Windows file system servers," states Colin Harford at University of Alberta Human Resources. Opened in 1908 as a board-governed public institution, the University of Alberta has grown to be one of Canada's foremost research-intensive universities serving more than 35,500 students in more than 200 undergraduate programs and 170 graduate programs. "CommVault makes it easy for us to keep point-in-time protection images online in our SAN. We use those images for our disaster recovery with CommVault Galaxy, so that our in-house production systems are not impacted."

"Hitachi Data Systems is pleased to work with CommVault to offer RecoveryDirector 6.1 to users of our backup and recovery solutions," said Jack Domme, senior vice president, global solutions, strategy and development, Hitachi Data Systems. "RecoveryDirector adds critical enterprise recovery management capability for users who rely on snapshot technology including Hitachi TrueCopy™ Remote Replication, Hitachi ShadowImage™ In-System Replication and QuickShadow capabilities to enable non-disruptive backups and quick recovery in SAN environments."

"NetApp innovated and introduced NetApp® Snapshot™ technology to the storage industry over 10 years ago. Customers trust NetApp Snapshot technology for all their networked storage environments, including both SAN and NAS. SnapVault® is an innovative enhancement to NetApp Snapshot technology, designed for backing up remote office environments," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Products and Alliances at Network Appliance, Inc. "CommVault RecoveryDirector provides a simple and streamlined way to leverage and control these Snapshot capabilities to accelerate our customers' recovery operations and simplify their IT procedures."

Benefits of RecoveryDirector
For enterprises that wish to add the capabilities of snapshot management to existing data protection environments, CommVault RecoveryDirector features offer the following benefits:

  • Speeds recovery from data loss, virus attacks and data corruption
  • Simplifies recovery of data from multiple recovery points
  • Simplifies use of native device snapshot capabilities to protect Exchange, SQL Server and Oracle databases, as well as Windows, Linux and UNIX file system data
  • Provides a single point of control to automatically sequence the creation of multiple point-in-time snapshot images
  • Enables improved recovery and snapshot management on hardware from leading storage vendors

For CommVault Galaxy customers who wish to add snapshot capabilities to extend backup and restore, CommVault RecoveryDirector offers the following benefits:

  • Reduces or eliminates backup windows by enabling administrators to make backup copies using snapshots rather than production data
  • Provides a single GUI console for unified, concurrent management control of snapshots, replication and backup
  • Provides a one-step recovery process to the client from the backup without having to recreate the snapshot image as a first step

Platform and Application Coverage
CommVault RecoveryDirector offers vendor-neutral snapshot and recovery capabilities leveraging storage systems from leading providers. RecoveryDirector supports recovery of data from multiple sources, including:

  • Applications: SQL, Exchange and Oracle
  • File systems: Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, AIX, HP-UX, Red Hat Linux, and Solaris
  • Integrated snapshot solutions: HDS ShadowImage, QuickShadow, and TrueCopy; EMC Clariion SnapView and Symmetrix TimeFinder; NetApp Snapshot technology, SnapVault Software and Open Systems SnapVault (OSSV); HP/Compaq StorageWorks EVA and EVM; and Microsoft's Volume Shadow-copy Service (VSS) architecture which supports any VSS-compliant storage device, including those from Dell.

RecoveryDirector recovery management includes QuickRecovery, CommVault's snapshot management solution integrated with storage-embedded snapshot capabilities offered by storage vendors including HDS, NetApp, EMC and Dell. RecoveryDirector also includes CommVault's independent Copy-on-Write (COW) snapshot software capability, QSnap, for use with hardware systems that do not include native snapshot capabilities.

Availability
The CommVault RecoveryDirector feature set is immediately available. CommVault invites interested parties to attend an on-demand Webinar event on June 22, 2006 to learn more about CommVault's Recovery Management capabilities and to see a demonstration of RecoveryDirector. For more information, visit www.commvault.com.

About CommVault
CommVault® provides Unified Data Management™ solutions for high- performance data protection, universal availability and simplified management of data on complex storage networks. The CommVault® QiNetix™ platform, based on CommVault's Common Technology Engine, integrates Galaxy backup and recovery, snapshot management and recovery, active data migration and archiving, e-mail compliance, enterprise service level management and reporting and storage resource management software solutions. The QiNetix unified approach is designed to allow customers to add/integrate QiNetix components, at a fraction of the time, effort and money required by separate point products.

Information about CommVault is available on the World Wide Web at www.commvault.com or by calling (732) 870-4000. CommVault's corporate headquarters is located in Oceanport, New Jersey in the United States.

About CommVault Galaxy
CommVault Galaxy Backup & Recovery software offers users unified, scalable backup and recovery for distributed, heterogeneous environments. With Galaxy, policy-based actions can be enforced across all operating environments, applications and storage types. The easy-to-use, browser interface allows users to perform high-speed backups and restores to help maintain data access. Galaxy includes a robust reporting capability to ensure easy of management in enterprise data protection environments.

About QuickRecovery
QuickRecovery guards against application or file system data loss or corruption by creating a secondary, native format Recovery Volume which provides a point-in-time data set that can be mounted in the place of a lost volume. Speeding the time required to restore application or file system data from disk or tape backup, QuickRecovery augments traditional backup operations in high-availability, SAN-based environments. QuickRecovery integrates with hardware-based snapshot technologies from a number of vendors. RecoveryDirector enables QuickRecovery to integrate with Galaxy.

©2006 CommVault Systems, Inc. CommVault Systems, CommVault Galaxy, CommVault QiNetix, DataMigrator, DataArchiver, QNet, CommServe StorageManager, MediaAgent, iDataAgent, CommCell and the CommVault logo are trademarks and may be registered trademarks in some jurisdictions of CommVault Systems, Inc. Product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. NetApp and SnapVault are registered trademarks and Snapshot is a trademark of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding financial projections, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, such as competitive factors, difficulties and delays inherent in the development, manufacturing, marketing and sale of software products and related services, general economic conditions and others. Statements regarding CommVault's beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future are forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results. CommVault does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements.