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2017 has been a great year for IBM data protection. We added many new features to our award-winning enterprise data protection suite with 4 new releases to IBM Spectrum Protect in just the last year. We brought to market a copy management solution (IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management) that reduces copy sprawl and makes use of secondary data, while allowing you to get the best of your DevOps efforts through API automation and management. And our latest addition to our data protection portfolio, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus was named a Hot Product at VMworld 2017 by Network World.

If you’ve missed some of that, let us help you with the headline… It isn’t just about backup anymore! Organizations want to get value of that secondary data, and they want teams to be able to make and use copies in every part of their business. The leading storage industry analyst firm Gartner highlighted this shift in their 2017 Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions.

“[1]By 2020, 30% of large enterprises will leverage snapshots and backup for more than just operational recovery (e.g., disaster recovery, test/development, DevOps, etc.), up from less than 15% at the beginning of 2017.”

You can read the full report and see why IBM was once again named a leader in this Magic Quadrant. Read more here.

Embrace data availability, not just backup.  Our latest addition to our data protection and availability portfolio, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, is a VM availability solution designed so that IT professionals can perform a backup without spending the time learning the ins and outs of a complicated backup tool. Designed from the start with ease of use in mind, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus uses SLA-based backup templates for backup setup and virtual deployment methodologies so that an administrator can deploy more quickly, and protect your environment within an hour.

Vinny Choinski, Senior Lab Analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, tested Spectrum Protect Plus out and said this:

“IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is easy to install and takes only a few minutes. ESG was able to walk through a basic Spectrum Protect Plus deployment in approximately 15 minutes, including the kickoff of an initial backup job for a virtual machine in the test environment.”

But it’s not just easy to use, it’s fast for recovery. We start with backup configuration through SLA-based configurations that match the way you likely think about protection. Developers or VM owners (not just backup administrators) can select the type of protection they want Spectrum Protect Plus to perform for the virtual machines. When it comes time to restore, an internet-like search lets VM and application owners search across all recovery points for files and VMs, and select the one they want to use to recover. Vinny tested this as well and said:

“Restore with Spectrum Protect Plus is fast. During validation, we did a test restore which took only 42 seconds to complete.”

You can read the full results from the ESG Lab Review here.

Not only do analysts love this new solution, customers who have gotten early access are excited too. Matthew McGeary with the Potash Corporation in Canada is responsible for a protected estate that extends well beyond his headquarters’ data center. At each mining location in Potash’s organization, Matthew maintains a set of servers, including a local backup server for backup and recovery. Using IBM Spectrum Protect Plus as part of the Early Access Program, Matthew saw how the speed of deployment could dramatically simplify his data protection and availability tasks.

“Our first deployment took about 20 minutes from start to running our first backup. We have a backup server at each of our mining sites and we have a lot of those. Each time we set up a new site, deployment is a big issue. Rolling out in such a short amount of time will be a big-time saver. The search and point in time restore options were very easy. We do daily backups today but with the fast restore and point in time recover point search for VM and file, we would increase that to give more granular recovery points.”

– Matthew McGeary, Potash Corporation

Fast backup and recovery is only the beginning. IT departments and the customers they serve want faster access to copies of data. We learned this lesson when we brought IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management to market. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus builds on the same principles of a single catalog of all copies for easier data life cycle management. Making copies accessible as part of DevOps workflows means that that old backup data that was just collecting dust can now be put to work for your organization for reporting, analytics, testing and development and unlocking value.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is available today as a standalone solution. Customers looking for a fast-deploying, easy-to-use, rapid recovery solution for VM availability can go to our marketplace and often start using it the same day. With the latest release of IBM Spectrum Protect Suite on December 12th, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus becomes an official part of the IBM Spectrum Protect Suite license. That means if you use the capacity license for IBM Spectrum Protect Suite, you can start using this innovative new solution that Jason Buffington of the Enterprise Strategy Group called a “must-see” solution.

Whether you use IBM Spectrum Protect today, or are brand new to IBM data protection, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is easy to try. A 90-day trial is available from the marketplace website here. If you’d like to read more about our data protection solutions, read The Enterprise Strategy Group Solution Showcase here.

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