Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, enhanced by its innovative Transparent Snapshots feature, offers a compelling solution that not only improves backup efficiency, but also increases VM density on ESXi hosts.
Rising Licensing Costs Demand Smarter Solutions
Over the past year, VMware licensing costs have ballooned, putting significant pressure on IT budgets. For many organizations, this has led to exploring alternative hypervisors to diversify their ecosystems.
However, migrating away from VMware often introduces significant complexities, posing new operational risks and performance trade-offs. A more advantageous approach involves protecting existing investments by optimizing VMware environments with innovative technologies like Transparent Snapshots. This feature simplifies backup operations by removing the need for resource-intensive VM proxies, thereby conserving compute, memory, and storage resources.
According to a Principled Technologies white paper on modern backup strategies, reducing backup overhead not only cuts costs but also improves performance. Transparent Snapshots proves to be an effective, validated solution to achieve these benefits.
The Backup Bottleneck: Traditional Methods vs. Innovation
Historically, VMware’s vStorage API for Data Protection (VADP) has relied on VM proxies to transfer data during backup processes. These proxies consume valuable compute resources and storage capacity. Furthermore, they often lead to VM stuns, which disrupt mission-critical applications such as SQL or Oracle databases. Even brief performance interruptions can have severe operational impacts on such workloads, making traditional methods less viable for modern IT demands.
Transparent Snapshots address these challenges head-on. Co-developed with VMware, it integrates directly with the vSphere kernel, allowing it to work seamlessly with your virtual environment. Unlike older proxy-based methods that add latency, the process tracks VM changes and processes snapshots directly within Dell PowerProtect Data Manager. Temporary data blocks are released without external dependencies, streamlining operations significantly. This approach accelerates backups and minimizes disruptions to live applications, keeping workloads stable.
Key performance benefits include:
- A 43% reduction in backup time for large-scale VM environments1
- 75% less time needed for incremental backup cycles2
- A 56% faster restore time for large VMs compared to traditional backup methods3
Operational Benefits Beyond Speed
While faster backups and restores are impressive on their own, the operational benefits of Transparent Snapshots are even more compelling. Frequent backups are essential for protecting critical workloads without compromising performance. With Transparent Snapshots, IT teams can perform near-continuous backups of applications like SQL and Oracle databases without causing the disruptive VM stuns often seen with traditional methods.
This near-zero impact during backups means that organizations can schedule more frequent data protection cycles without the risk of service interruptions. The result is improved recovery time objectives (RTOs) and reduced downtime during incidents, ensuring that business operations remain resilient even in the face of unforeseen disruptions.
Maximizing ROI Through Efficient Resource Management
Balancing cost efficiency with performance has always been a challenge for IT administrators. Transparent Snapshots not only addresses performance limitations but also helps maximize the ROI from VMware investments. By removing dependency on VM proxies, significant resources are freed up. These reclaimed resources can subsequently support additional VM workloads.
Higher VM density on ESXi hosts allows organizations to delay expensive hardware upgrades, thereby extending the lifespan of existing infrastructure. Every dollar saved from reduced backup operations becomes available for reinvestment in innovative ventures or growth initiatives. Transparent Snapshots transforms traditional cost-heavy backup functions into a strategic enabler of operational efficiency and value creation.
A Sustainable Future for Virtualization
IT environments continue to grow increasingly complex, and the data they manage expands at an exponential pace. A sustainable virtualization strategy must optimize existing infrastructure while preparing for future challenges. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, armed with Transparent Snapshots, offers precisely that solution.
Beyond standard VM environments, this platform’s flexibility extends into hybrid and multicloud architectures. Available either as an integrated appliance or a software-defined solution, PowerProtect Data Manager ensures seamless data protection across diverse infrastructures. Its forward-thinking design reduces operational overhead while safeguarding IT investments for the long run.
Future-Proofing Your VMware Investment
In an era of rising VMware licensing costs and expanding data environments, the need for smarter, more efficient backup solutions has never been greater. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, with its innovative Transparent Snapshots, offers a proven strategy to not only reduce backup and restore times but also to reclaim valuable system resources. By eliminating the dependency on VM proxies and minimizing disruptive impacts during data protection, Transparent Snapshots empower IT teams to achieve higher VM density and a superior return on VMware investments.
For organizations looking to maximize ROI while maintaining operational excellence, embracing Transparent Snapshots is a strategic imperative. Discover how you can optimize your VMware environment and secure a resilient, scalable future with this leading-edge solution.
1 Principled Technologies Report, Reduce time to complete backups and restores with Transparent Snapshots with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, June 2022
2Principled Technologies Report, Reduce time to complete backups and restores with Transparent Snapshots with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, June 2022
3Principled Technologies Report, Reduce time to complete backups and restores with Transparent Snapshots with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, June 2022
