71: GreyBeards talk DP appliances with Sharad Rastogi, Sr. VP & Ranga Rajagopalan, Sr. Dir., Dell EMC DPD

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In this episode we talk data protection appliances with Sharad Rastogi (@sharadrastogi), Senior VP Product Management,  and Ranga Rajagopalan, Senior Director, Data Protection Appliances Product Management, Dell EMC Data Protection Division (DPD). Howard attended Ranga’s TFDx session (see TFDx videos here) on their new Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) the DP4400 at VMworld last month in Las Vegas.

This is the first time we have had anyone from Dell EMC DPD on our show. Ranga and Sharad were both knowledgeable about the data protection industry, industry trends and talked at length about the new IDPA DP4400.

Dell EMC IDPA DP4400

The IDPA DP4400 is the latest member of the Dell EMC IDPA product family.  All IDPA products package secondary storage, backup software and other solutions/services to make for a quick and easy deployment of a complete backup solution in your data center.  IDPA solutions include protection storage and software, search and analytics, system management — plus cloud readiness with cloud disaster recovery and long-term retention — in one 2U appliance. So there’s no need to buy any other secondary storage or backup software to provide data protection for your data center.

The IDPA DP4400 grows in place  from 24 to 96TB of usable capacity and at an average 55:1 dedupe ratio, it could support over 5PB of backup storage on the appliance. The full capacity always ships with the appliance. Customers can select how much or little they get to use by just purchasing a software license key.

In addition to the on appliance capacity, the IDPA DP4400 can use up to 192TB of cloud storage for a native Cloud tier. Cloud tiering takes place after a specified, appliance residency interval, after which backup data is moved from the appliance to the cloud. IDPA Cloud Tier works with AWS, Azure, IBM Cloud Object Storage, Ceph and Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage. With the 192TB of cloud and 96TB of on appliance usable storage, together with a 55:1 dedupe ratio, a single IDPA DP4400 can support over 14PB of logical backup data.

Furthermore, IDPA supports Cloud DR. With Cloud DR, backed up VMs are copied to the public cloud (AWS) on a scheduled basis. In case of a disaster, there is an orchestrated failover with the VMs spun up in the cloud. The cloud workloads can then easily be failed back on site once the disaster is resolved.

The IDPA DP4400 also comes with native DD Boost™ support. This means Oracle, SQL server and other applications that already support DD Boost can also use the appliance to backup and restore their application data. DD Boost customers can make use of native application services such as Oracle RAC to manage their database backups/restores with the appliance.

Dell EMC also offers their Future-Proof Loyalty Program guarantees for the IDPA DP4400, including a Data Protection Deduplication guarantee, which, if best practices are followed, Dell EMC will guarantee the appliance dedupe ratio for backup data. Additional guarantees from the Dell EMC Future-Proof Program for IDPA DP4400 include a 3-Year Satisfaction guarantee, a Clear Price guarantee which guarantees predictable pricing for future maintenance and service as well as a Cloud Enabled guarantee. These are just a few of the Dell EMC guarantees provided for the IDPA DP4400.

The podcast runs ~16 minutes. Ranga and Sharad were both very knowlegdeable on DP industry, DP trends and the new IDPA DP4400.  Listen to the podcast to learn more.

Sharad Rostogi, Senior V.P. Product Management, Dell EMC Data Protection Division

Sharad Rastogi is a global technology executive with strong track record of transforming businesses and increasing shareholder value across a broad range of leadership roles, in both high growth and turnaround situations.

As SVP of Product Management at Dell EMC, Sharad is responsible for all products for the $3B Data Protection business.  He oversees a diverse portfolio, and is currently developing next generation integrated appliances, software and cloud based data protection solutions. In the past, Sharad has held senior roles in general management, products, marketing, corporate development and strategy at leading companies including Cisco, JDSU, Avid and Bain.

Sharad holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in engineering from the Boston University and a B.Tech in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.

He is an advisor to Boston University, College of Engineering, and a Board member at Edventure More – a non-profit providing holistic education. Sharad is a world traveler, always seeking new adventures and experiences

Rangaraaj (Ranga) Rajagopalan, Senior Director Data Protection Appliances Product Management, Dell EMC Data Protection Division

Ranga Rajagopalan is Senior Director of Product Management for Data Protection Appliances at Dell EMC. Ranga is responsible for driving the product strategy and vision for Data Protection Appliances, setting and delivering the multi-year roadmap for Data Domain and Integrated Data Protection Appliance.

Ranga has 15 years of experience in data protection, business continuity and disaster recovery, in both India and USA. Prior to Dell EMC, Ranga managed the Veritas Cluster Server and Veritas Resiliency Platform products for Veritas Technologies.

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