A Few of the Backup Appliances Examined by ESG Lab

This week, I offered some perspectives on What Makes a Good Backup Appliance, and I’d like to offer some further perspective on these types of products. My thoughts on What Makes a Good Backup Appliance include: Part 1 – Understanding the appeal of PBBAs (turnkey solutions) Part 2 – Basic guidance on the value-prop of … Read more

What Makes a Good Backup Appliance – Part 3 of 3

In my earlier posts from this series, I discussed adoption rates and rationales for purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) over do-it-yourself (DIY) backup servers and then explored some top-level DIY vs PBBA determinants and non-determinants. Start with ease-of-architecture/acquisition (covered in part 2), meaning right-sized parts that are assured to work well together – and the convenience … Read more

What Makes a Good Backup Appliance – Part 2 of 3

In my earlier post about the characteristics of good backup appliances, I discussed the increasing usage rates of purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) by those organizations that embrace them. But after listening to several sessions at IBM Interconnect last week, including discussing our upcoming research report on data protection appliances (DPAs), I started thinking about, what … Read more

What Makes a Good Backup Appliance – Part 1 of 3

In general, I am a fan of data protection appliances (DPAs), noting that purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) are just one of four categories of DPAs that are in market today.  Read more about the four categories of DPAs in my earlier blog. ESG is in fact just finishing up some research on the various DPAs … Read more

Tape still critical in any data archiving strategy

The rumors of tape’s demise are greatly exaggerated and have been ever since disk companies started predicting the end of tape (which hasn’t happened yet, and is unlikely to anytime soon). A recent Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research report found that tape is still in use in 56% of organizations. In general, the larger the … Read more