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Idera Enters Enterprise Backup Software Market
On November 13, 2012, Idera Software entered the commercial backup software market with what the company’s CEO, Rick Pleczko, described in a briefing as the Toyota of enterprise backup, Idera Server Backup Enterprise. Pleczko’s Toyota analogy is based upon reliability and affordability, two key attributes that enabled Toyota to become the world’s largest auto maker.
Been There, Done That
This is not Idera’s first foray into backup. The company reports its backup software is already protecting more than 275,000 servers in more than 1,000 data centers. These data centers are, however, for the most part, Web-hosting and cloud service providers, that use what is now called Server Backup for Service Providers as a value-added, margin-enhancing service for their hosting clients. The product was previously marketed, up through version 4, under the R1Soft brand.
What’s New
The three biggest changes in the November 13 announcement are:
- Disruptive pricing model.
- Multi-platform support:
- Physical servers:
- Windows,
- Linux,
- Virtual servers:
- VMware,
- HyperV,
- Xen,
- Physical servers:
- Rebranding as Idera Server Backup Enterprise 5.0.
Disruptive Pricing Model
Beyond the expanded platform support and new features, perhaps the most significant component of the announcement is the pricing model. At this price point, Pleczko hopes to enable customers to backup all servers in the enterprise. As was discussed in the November 13, 2012 Wikibon Peer Incite Research Meeting, many customers cannot afford to back up all the servers in the enterprise, and, with tight budgets, must sometimes limit backups to business-critical servers.
While backup software license cost is not the only impediment to backing up all servers in the enterprise, at industry-typical prices it is significant. Depending on the backup approach, the other factors may include:
- Cost and availability of disk or tape storage,
- Backup window constraints,
- Network bandwidth limitations.
Idera’s pricing model offers four volume licensing options for virtual machines:
- 50 VMs: $995,
- 250 VMs: $3,995,
- 1,000 VMs: $14,995,
- Unlimited site license: $49,995.
In addition, Idera offers the following four volume licensing options for physical servers:
- 5 servers: $995,
- 100 servers: $12,995,
- 250 servers: $24,995,
- Unlimited site license: $49,995.
Challenges
Idera’s pricing is very aggressive, but it will face several challenges. While it is broadly adopted within hosting providers, it is relatively unknown within the enterprise backup market. Despite the cost advantage, software licensing is, as stated, only one of the cost factors in server backup. Customers seek to minimize complexity and training expense. Ease-of-use features, which Idera has developed, will be key, but customers may still be reluctant to switch.
Virtually all organizations have a backup solution already in house, and while it may be too costly to deploy on all of the servers, maintaining multiple backup solutions, one more high-featured and costly and one for everything else, may add too much complexity for some customers.
All That Said, Virtualization Creates Opportunity
Customers and suppliers universally agree that the advent and mass adoption of virtualization broke backup processes and disrupted pricing models. Wikibon has seen pricing models based upon physical servers, cores, and the number of virtual machines. The world of virtualization, however, is dynamic, not static, and license administration within a virtualized environment is an IT manager’s nightmare. One of Idera’s key value propositions, therefore, may be the comparatively-low cost threshold for getting to site-wide licensing.
Action Item: With more than 1,000 data centers and 275,000 servers to its credit, Idera offers a field-tested solution. Clearly organizations would benefit from enterprise-wide, comprehensive backup, and Idera has eliminated at least one impediment for most organizations (backup software license fees) and simplified another (software license administration). With virtualization becoming more broadly adopted within both mission-critical and business-critical applications across organizations of all sizes, now is the time to revisit backup software options, and Idera should be on your short list for consideration.
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