Enterprise IT is undergoing a transformational process that is impacting every level of the organization. Cloud computing now dominates many new project agendas as business user groups gravitate to cloud- based applications. And as enterprise IT responds with new service delivery capabilities, the traditional application environment can’t be ignored or neglected either. As a result, IT is challenged to drive operational efficiency as it strives to achieve a balance between the new cloud and traditional IT environments without incurring a budget-breaking increase in infrastructure and headcount.

One place IT can look to for gains in operational efficiency is the data protection function which is critical to both traditional and cloud environments. In fact, cloud computing places additional demands on an enterprises’ existing data protection capabilities. When these additional demands are examined, there emerges a clear need to transform current practices. Unfortunately, this can result in a struggle for budget dollars that pits new business aspirations against IT processes that don’t produce revenue. Funding for advancing data protection with replacement technologies and solutions may be hard to find.

A cost-efficient way to inject new data protection practices that are commensurate with business advancement projects is to use integrated data protection capabilities built into modern data center storage systems. Doing so makes the effort an incremental process which is tied to other, broader business advancement objectives. Here we outline NetApp’s SnapMirror approach to data protection and compare it on a TCO basis to what has become the traditional practice of using an external data protection system such as a purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) with additional backup software. We note that similar results can be seen as compared to the even more traditional approach of tape- based backup and restore. However, analysis of tape systems is beyond the scope of this report.

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