BMC Software Inc. and XOSoft have struck a deal to integrate XOSofts WANSync replication and continuous data protection technology into BMCs SQL-Backtrack backup product suite.
Set to be announced on Monday, the new technology will be sold directly through BMC and will be available by the end of the quarter.
By re-licensing the bundled XOSoft WANSync on Microsoft Windows and Unix platforms, BMC will be able to provide SQL-Backtrack customers with remote replication, instant failover, improved backup and restore speeds, and the ability to rewind data at a point in time for greater reporting accuracy, said Leonid Stihlman, founder and CEO of XOSoft, based in Waltham, Mass.
Stihlman said his company is talking to other large-scale systems management vendors to create similar bundled offerings to boost their existing backup processes.
In addition, he said XOSoft will extend platform support toward Linux, HP-UX, and eventually databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
David Russell, research director for Gartner Inc., based in Stamford, Conn., said the most beneficial byproduct of BMC and XOSoft joining forces is that it brings a heightened sense of CDP application protection and recovery to an audience of IT administrators and developers that may not be familiar with the growing concept.
“A lot of times in more established enterprises, data protection falls to one group, so the onus is then on that one group to understand everything going on in the environment and what service levels are for what applications.
“So, typically, from a line of business perspective you have a SQL Server administrator or [Microsoft] Exchange administrator on the hook for recovery objectives,” Russel said.
“[Areas] where BMC really sells into, theyre not always aware of data protection and data recoverability. Its just that theyre not as up to speed on the proper protection techniques that exist in the market and ensuring [that] the application they own is protected…this [integration] offers them a lot of value,” he added.
Russell said the new relationship between XOSoft and BMC signals the increasingly blurring lines between backup and replication technologies and strategies for disk-based offerings by vendors.
Particularly in the area of remote office management, replication, snapshots and data protection measures are being bundled together under one hood to save cost and prevent multivendor management issues.