Simplifying Data Protection with Dell EMC IDPA

The evolution of data requires new solutions.

Today's organizations are facing the ever-increasing challenge of implementing data protection for the growing amount of data produced by their applications and devices. Additionally, ownership of that data continues to move from the IT department to the lines of business, while IT is still required to protect the data from a security and compliance perspective.

A 2016 analysis by Dell EMC, found that 82 percent of the organizations surveyed needed to transform their data protection environment to keep pace with the evolving IT landscape. It was also found that 36 percent of those organizations also suffered a data loss or downtime due to data security breaches, with the average annual cost approaching $1 million.

Solving these challenges proves difficult, primarily due to complexity. Organizations face complexity in meeting data protection requirements and in building the right size data protection solution. They also need to avoid data silos from occurring or implementing fragmented solutions.

To learn more about, listen to this TEC17 podcast and hear WWT's Steve Gregory and David Turton from Dell EMC provide insight into Dell EMC's Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) solution and how it benefits organizations' IT environment.

IDPA: Deploying a data protection solution quickly

WWT's OEM partners have introduced next generation solutions to deliver data backup and protection in a single package.

One such solution is the Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA). IDPA is a pre-configured, turnkey appliance that converges storage, protection software, search and analytics. It also offers native cloud-tiering for long-term retention. The integrated hardware and software solution allows customers to deploy it into their environment much quicker than typical piece-meal data protection solutions. And gives IT piece of mind that data is secure, backed up and protected against disasters and outages.

Testing IDPA in the ATC

Dell EMC lists some of the benefits for IDPA as the following:

• IDPA protects 10X faster than traditional build your own data protection alternatives.
• IDPA has 20 percent faster performance than the closest competitor..
• IDPA seamlessly extends to the cloud with native cloud-tiering for long-term retention to private or public cloud
• IDPA is flash enabled and VMware optimized for instant access and restore of virtual machines, enabling compliance with stringent RPO/RTO requirements for VMware environments.

So naturally, when IDPA was released, we wanted to put it to the test in our Advanced Technology Center (ATC). After testing this hardware in our data protection lab, we found that:

• The implementation time of the IDPA solution was significantly quicker than traditional and competing solutions. The IDPA arrives factory cabled and factory integrated, allowing only a minimal amount of customer specific configuration to be done once delivered.
• Thanks to the inclusion of flash technology at the storage target, the IDPA delivered consistently faster performance compared to legacy, non-flash solutions.
• Testing with VMware realized rapid access and restoration of virtual machines backed up on the appliance.
• The cloud tiering option is easily configured, and eliminates the need to have a cloud gateway for long-term retention.
• The IDPA delivers a comprehensive physical and virtual workload ecosystem, which has the ability to consolidate workload protection while eliminating inefficient sprawl within the data protection environment. With the comprehensive application support and hyper-visor support, the IDPA can remove silos created by other data protection.

WWT can demonstrate the Dell EMC IDPA and other data protection solutions within our ATC. If you are interested in learning more, leave a comment below or download our app ATC Connect to explore more of our lab capabilities.