SunGard Taps DataDomain for DR Appliances

March 16, 2010 Alex Woodie

SunGard Availability Services last week announced a partnership with EMC to use EMC’s market-leading data de-duplication technology from its Data Domain subsidiary to power SunGard’s Secure2Disk disaster recovery (DR) appliances.

SunGard introduced the Secure2Disk appliances last June as a way for its larger customers to protect their data. By storing backups locally on the Secure2Disk appliance, customers are guaranteed rapid access to low-priority recoveries. At the same time, by replicating backups to a second Secure2Disk appliance located offsite or at a SunGard recovery center, the solution offers good DR protection.

When SunGard launched the appliances last year, the company used software from Asigra to power the backups and data retention policies, while it was providing the underlying hardware and disk itself. As a result of the partnership with EMC, SunGard now offers a second version of Secure2Disk “powered by EMC Data Domain,” while the original offering gains the “powered by Asigra” moniker.

Customers that choose the Data Domain version of Secure2Disk are free to use any backup software they choose, SunGard says. They are also able to take advantage of Data Domain’s advanced data de-duplication capabilities, which reduces data storage requirements, on average, by a factor of 20-to-1, SunGard says.

Data Domain appliances are not cheap, and therefore are usually adopted by mid- to large-sized organizations with demanding storage requirements and large IT budgets. However, customers that can afford Data Domain appliances are likely to enjoy benefits in other areas besides the cost of storage, such as time to recovery.

One early customer of the Data Domain-powered Secure2Disk appliance, the Halifax Health medical center in Florida, expects the solution to cut recovery time by more than half. “During a recent test, a full recovery of data and systems was achieved in less than 24 hours, or less than half the over 60-hour recovery time we experienced using tape,” states Kevin Noel, who holds the title of manager of IT risk at the hospital.

In addition to storage replication, SunGard Availability Services offers several levels of DR capabilities ranging from tape storage and recovery, Internet-based backup and recovery, hot site services, and full application replication using high availability software for i/OS and other server platforms. The Wayne, Pennsylvania, company is also getting into the application hosting business.