Commvault Complete™ Data Protection

Short Summary

Organizations pursuing digital transformation become increasingly dependent on IT services, raising the potential business impact of accidental errors, natural disasters, and cyber incidents. Business continuity planning therefore becomes essential, and continuity of digital services depends on robust backup products and disaster recovery (DR) services that fit modern hybrid, multi-cloud environments. Continuity also underpins the security triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, requiring protection of service data against physical or logical damage. Traditional on-premises backup models copy data to tape or disk and store it offsite, but physical transfer introduces delay and risk, while IT delivery is shifting toward hybrid models that combine on-premises and cloud services.

Big Data platforms such as Hadoop, Cassandra, Greenplum, and MongoDB add further protection challenges due to massive volume and format variety; legacy approaches often struggle, increasing governance and compliance risk if protection and DR are inadequate. In hybrid multi-cloud settings, customers may incorrectly assume cloud services eliminate the need for backups; that is only valid when SLAs meet required RPOs and RTOs, which is not guaranteed. Managing multiple protection tools across environments increases operational burden, strengthening the case for a common, integrated approach. Cloud storage can also serve as a resilient backup location due to geographically distributed, secured datacenters, reducing reliance on physical media transfers.

Commvault Complete Data Protection combines Commvault Backup & Recovery with Commvault Disaster Recovery into a single solution spanning on-premises, cloud, and hybrid deployments. It offers backup, replication, and DR orchestration with automation, policy-driven operations, deduplication, encryption, ransomware protections, verifiable recoverability via copy data management, and role-based self-service through the Commvault Command Center. Coverage includes file systems, databases (including NoSQL and big data file systems), VMs, containers, endpoints, IaaS across major clouds, and SaaS platforms such as Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. Strengths include maturity, broad workload coverage, and strong security; challenges include reliance on partners for managed DR and lack of independent compliance certification.

Interesting Facts

• Business continuity planning is described as an essential element of digital transformation.
• Ensuring IT service continuity is presented as part of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
• Physical transfer of backup media introduces delays and additional risks.
• Big Data technologies cited as critical include Hadoop, Cassandra, Greenplum, and MongoDB.
• Failing to protect and provide DR for big data increases the risk of missing data governance and compliance obligations.
• Commvault is a publicly traded company headquartered in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, and was formed in 1988 within Bell Labs before incorporation in 1996.
• In July 2020, Commvault announced a portfolio including Backup & Recovery, Disaster Recovery, Complete Data Protection, and HyperScale X.
• Commvault Complete Data Protection combines Commvault Backup & Recovery and Commvault Disaster Recovery into a single solution.
• Supported SaaS platforms listed include Microsoft 365 and Salesforce, with coverage for Exchange email/OneDrive/SharePoint content and Salesforce objects and files.
• Managed disaster recovery services are delivered through partners.

Notable Quotes

• “Business continuity planning is an essential element in the digital transformation process.”
• “The physical transfer of these media adds delays and additional risks.”
• “There is a temptation to believe that the use of a cloud service removes the need for the customer to take data backups.”
• “This is only true where the SLA (Service Level Agreement) meets all the customer’s needs, including their RPO (Recovery Point Objectives) and RTO (Recovery Time Objectives), and this is not always the case.”
• “This makes it even more important to have a common solution that covers all the different use cases.”
• “The cloud also provides an alternative location for backed up data since major cloud service providers usually have several highly secured datacentres in multiple geographic locations.”
• “The key point is to be able to recover from a disaster and these two elements should be integrated or at least proven to meet this objective.”
• “Commvault Complete™ Data Protection includes built-in DR orchestration, automated compliance reporting, flexible replication, and cloud data mobility to help to ensure business continuity and avoid downtime.”
• “It includes security features, resilient ransomware protection, and verifiable recoverability via copy data management to protect the IT infrastructure.”
• “Role-based access control enables self-service.”