CommVault Upgrades Its Storage and Data Management Platform

QiNetix 6.1 features IQ Ops, a new broad data and management suite designed to allow storage administrators to proactively address cost, productivity and IT resources issues plaguing storage and data operations.

Providing storage customers with a simplified methodology to manage data within complex storage environments, CommVault on Monday rolled out its upgraded QiNetix Version 6.1 data management platform buoyed by new automated monitoring and e-Support capabilities.

Currently available, QiNetix 6.1 features IQ Ops, a new broad data and management suite designed to allow storage administrators to proactively address cost, productivity and IT resources issues plaguing storage and data operations.

The enhanced platform offers failover, load balancing and reliability functionality to identify trouble areas dealing with the blending of online, nearline and offline storage assets, said officials of Oceanport, N.J.-based CommVault.

For instance, the QiNetix 6.1 software will specifically inform a user that a tape is stuck in a tape drive during a failed migration, rather than provide a generic "migration problem" alert tag, CommVault officials said.

The software also features a readiness check to perform self-diagnosis on systems allowing an administrator to be told where potential failure scenarios lie, involving network connectivity, servers, or services.

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CommVaults new technology will predict how much data will therefore be moved based on historical trends compared to the amount of free space on a device, or provide an alert where space must be provisioned to satisfy capacity.

Additional data management features included in the QiNetix enhancement are: reduced backup jobs created for shortened backup windows; the ability to restart or resume software operations if device outages occur; an optimized meta database structure and access model to link up scores of processing jobs with appropriate devices using priority and path resources; and a feature called the CommCell Readiness Check to assess the success rate of upcoming processes to pinpoint potential trouble spots before they occur, officials said.

Laura DuBois, research director for Storage Software at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, said IDC studies show a relationship between the mercurial growth rate of data growth and storage capacity with the need to institute a fundamental change relating to simplifying backend processes of a storage infrastructure.

"I see [QiNetix 6.1 software] as support infrastructure to help [organizations] deliver to their customers a way to more quickly troubleshoot, resolve, and fix problems and to provide a self-help and self-service as well," said DuBois.

"All of these problem areas are very well known within the data management space … CommVault is building out these robust reliability and portability features that you can address across a unified platform."

CommVault will have a team of its technicians available around-the-clock as part of its new e-Support Options to coincide with its bolstered QiNetix platform.

Click here to read more about the QiNetix suite.

The technicians will be charged with collecting customer feedback, evaluating customers immediate and long-term IT needs.

Some current e-Support options include root-cause alerts with recommendations to solve problems, detailed event reporting, best practices, log-filters and e-mail and alert notification.

Pricing for QiNetix 6.1 software is based on capabilities and configuration.

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