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Commvault's Simpana Tailored for Microsoft Applications and Infrastructure
CIO Review
FREMONT, CA: CommVault extended its 15-year partnership with Microsoft to offer new, highly scalable solutions for manageing and protecting data in Hyper-V virtual environments, manageing workloads in Microsoft Azure, and new integration for Exchange, Office 365, SharePoint, and SQL Server applications.
The enhancements to CommVault’s Simpana singular software platform are tailored for Microsoft applications and infrastructure and designed to help enterprises cut costs by up to 50 percent, increase the value of data, drive business efficiencies and reduce risk. They include new capabilities for the management and access of data across the enterprise, from front offices to hosted cloud services, designed for the highest operational efficiency.
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According to N. Robert Hammer, Chief Executive Officer and President, CommVault, said, “Modern enterprises must keep their data operations running and respond quickly to business needs regardless of the size of the company or the vertical industry. Its unparalleled integration and optimization for Microsoft-based IT environments is a key reason why our customer, resellers and service providers trust in CommVault’s long-standing relationship with Microsoft for data management innovations that reduce cost, complexity and risk.”
CommVault’s data management architecture allows enterprises to securely and efficiently discover, protect, manage and create value from data. Simpana software extends Microsoft's built-in archiving support by delivering enterprise-class compliance and eDiscovery features including a single management interface for federated search, legal hold, file and email analytics and content-aware, deep retention. With these capabilities integrated with Windows Explorer, Outlook and other Microsoft applications, organizations can increase the availability of data for analytics, collaboration, cloud-based and mobile applications.
Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft, said, “CommVault’s embrace of Microsoft’s entire stack – application, operating system, and Cloud offerings – provides a 360 degree view of your entire infrastructure. This single view is critical to organizations striving to deliver against the fast-changing business demands for secure and instantly available information. The combination of Simpana and the Microsoft stack gives customers the tools needed to extract value from business data and manage their information more efficiently, whether it resides on physical infrastructure, Hyper-V virtual servers or the Microsoft Azure platform.”
Industry-leading Integration and Optimization for Microsoft-based IT environments
The new updates include automated ways for enterprises and service providers to manage data with deep integration for Microsoft Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and Azure hosted clouds and broad interoperability and support for Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, SQL Server, SharePoint and Windows endpoint devices.
Simpana software allows users and provider partners to unify data protection operations including backup, archive and Disaster Recovery and move data from on-premises infrastructure to Azure cloud storage easily.
Accelerating Hyper-V Adoption and Extending to Microsoft Azure
Working closely with Microsoft engineers, CommVault introduced enhancements for Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V virtualization that optimize manageability, data availability, storage efficiency and network resources for enterprises and service providers.
The Hyper-V virtual machine (VM) lifecycle management features extend the VM administration to end-users such as application owners or customers in multi-tenant environments, without requiring a call to the helpdesk. On demand, users can automatically provision their own new VMs with CPU, memory and storage resources; apply data protection to new VMs; and access, manage, recover and expire VMs -- all based on pre-defined policies that control usage, cost and retention and managed via a single console.
The block-based tracking support for Hyper-V, also known as changed-block tracking (CBT), enables "incremental forever" backups that minimize the impact on production VMs, reduce network requirements and provide more effective data protection and recovery. Highly scalable data backup architecture that can protect hundreds of Hyper-V VMs in a single node, using the combination of new cluster shared volumes (CSV) proxy backups and an incremental forever methodology. Enhanced CSV support now allows customers to use a proxy node to backup VMs residing on other Hyper-V nodes within the cluster, enabling LAN-free Hyper-V backups and eliminating the backup burden from production server and network resources.
Eliminating Data Silos and Reducing Risk with a Single View of Data
A core component of the Simpana software platform is the ContentStore, which is a single repository of CommVault-managed information for all data on any storage tier from physical to virtualized infrastructure and hosted workloads. The key enhancements to the Simpana software platform today include: the ContentStore Mail which enables organizations to centrally house all Exchange data in the ContentStore repository to essentially create infinite mailboxes. New PST archiving reduces risk by collecting personal message folders for simplified search, eDiscovery and access even if they are stored locally on file shares and endpoint devices. Customers can also securely search and use their archived email through a web console and natively through Outlook. New Office 365 integration allows customers to create on-premises copies of cloud-based files to simplify access and improve search and eDiscovery for legal hold and compliance requirements. Optimized protection for SharePoint supports externalized BLOB storage, which reduces the size of the SharePoint content database and efficiently archives and tiers data. Simpana software protects the entire SharePoint system, from the web farm to sites and documents, including the BLOB storage. New SQL Server 2014 support and simplified protection of SQL Server Always-On configurations reduce the impact to the application server. New Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) integration allows administrators to react faster to issues by managing Simpana software alerts via the SCOM interface. Windows endpoint protection, file sync and upload enable companies migrating their Windows XP client systems to Windows 7 or 8 to use CommVault Edge technology to easily and safely backup, recover and migrate data while maintaining continuous access to information for their mobile workforce. IT departments can wipe data on lost or remote laptops and lock sensitive documents. They can protect files created on tablets and smartphones with the ability to upload specific files to the ContentStore, sync them across devices and securely access and share data through web and mobile tools.
Availability and Time to Value for Microsoft Environments
The Simpana software enhancements are available immediately worldwide in the most recent Simpana 10 release directly from CommVault and its global channel network of PartnerAdvantage resellers, distributors, OEM and servicer provider partners.
CommVault Services are also immediately available to help customers achieve the fastest time-to-value over traditional in-house approaches. CommVault consultants help clients design, build and operate optimal modern data management environments for their business needs. As a result, customers are accelerating, extending and optimizing the value of their Simpana Software ecosystem through a full suite of offerings ranging from Data Classification and Archive Policy Design to Architecture Design and Disaster Recovery Readiness.
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Past sales provide a useful starting point, but irregular buying patterns can make forecasting difficult. Slow-moving products may not generate enough transactions to produce a reliable forecast on their own. Seasonal spikes can also skew averages long after demand has returned to normal. Buyers should look at whether the software can draw insights from related products and distinguish recurring demand from unusual orders. External factors such as weather may also help improve predictions, but their value needs to be demonstrated for the products concerned rather than assumed across the entire catalog.
Knowing what customers will buy is only half the equation. Buyers also need to know when to reorder. Changing supplier lead times can make it difficult to act on even an accurate demand forecast, while order frequency and minimum purchase quantities affect how much stock needs to be kept on hand. Software should account for actual purchase order history rather than rely solely on fixed lead times. Safety stock should also reflect how individual products sell at each location. Applying the same buffer everywhere can leave fast-selling products out of stock while slower-moving items pile up.
“Lantern refreshes recommendations weekly and lets buyers compare suggested stocking levels with existing settings before approving or overriding them.”
The way forecasting software works with existing ERP systems is another important consideration. If recommendations sit in a separate dashboard, buyers may still have to enter them manually into their purchasing systems. They should establish whether the software can read transactions from their existing ERP and feed approved stocking parameters or purchase orders back into it. Buyers also need to understand why the system recommends a particular change. When a business wins a new account or a branch receives an unusually large order, experienced staff should be able to override a forecast without having to work outside the system.
Forecast accuracy matters, but it does not tell the whole story. Lower inventory means little if it leads to stockouts and unhappy customers. In some cases, holding more stock may be the right decision if those products sell consistently. Buyers should look at how the software affects product availability, inventory turns and the capital tied up in excess stock. Testing its recommendations against past transactions can also show where they differ from existing purchasing practices before a wider rollout. Buyers should also account for the work involved in preparing historical data and managing exceptions once the system is in place.
Lantern builds a custom machine learning forecasting model for each distributor, using historical ERP data and business-specific purchasing practices. It combines demand forecasts with projected supplier lead times to recommend order timing and safety stock at the item-location level. Lantern refreshes recommendations weekly and lets buyers compare suggested stocking levels with existing settings before approving or overriding them. Approved purchase orders or stocking parameters can be written back into the ERP. Its models also examine relationships across products, supporting forecasts where individual sales histories are sparse. Distributors with large catalogs spread across multiple branches, especially those balancing excess inventory against missed sales, are the relevant buyers for this model. ...Read more
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Capture architecture deserves close attention as the front end determines how much work remains after scanning. Useful systems should support classification, optical character recognition, data extraction and validation in ways that match actual document types and exception rates. Human review also matters. Automated recognition is valuable when confidence is high, but buyers should understand where validation screens enter the process and how questionable fields are routed before information reaches a database or content repository.
Hardware choices belong in the same discussion. Desktop scanning and high-volume production work impose very different demands, and forcing both through a single equipment model can inflate costs or limit throughput. The proposed design should reflect actual preparation effort, peak intake volumes and the physical scanning environment rather than nominal device speed alone. Scanner flexibility also matters where several departments process different document sets at substantially different volumes.
“EDAC Systems provides first-line support across the hardware and software it sells, reducing the need for customers to separate faults among multiple providers.”
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Security and records requirements can narrow the field quickly, particularly in government or regulated environments. Encryption and records-management controls need to be resolved against approved deployment conditions before installation, rather than treated as post-deployment configuration. Procurement teams should verify that both hardware and software satisfy applicable requirements and that the provider can work within on-premises or approved hosted environments when needed.
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Pre-migration assessment establishes the boundaries of the work. User inventories should account for inactive accounts and shared mailboxes, while file assessments must identify naming restrictions, excessive path lengths and permission structures that Microsoft 365 handles differently. Tenant-to-tenant transfers introduce additional complications around identity mapping and existing collaboration spaces. Providers should document these differences before migration begins rather than discovering them during execution.
Compliance requirements can alter the migration design considerably. Retention policies and access restrictions may determine where information resides after transfer or which users can retrieve it. An assessment that concentrates exclusively on data volume risks overlooking controls that governed the original environment. Procurement teams benefit from examining whether the provider produces a documented migration scope connecting technical dependencies to the organization's internal requirements.
“RyanTech incorporates Microsoft Defender and Purview into tenant planning, allowing security requirements to shape the destination environment before users begin working in it.”
Cutover scheduling exposes a different set of risks. DNS propagation may take longer than anticipated, while network interruptions can delay synchronization during a planned transition. Promises of zero downtime leave little room for these external dependencies. A credible migration approach includes contingency procedures, defined escalation responsibilities and a cutover window that reflects the organization's working patterns. The provider should explain what happens when an expected transition does not occur on schedule.
Business continuity also depends on what employees encounter after the switch. Missing shared files or unfamiliar permissions can generate support requests even when mailbox transfers succeed. Validation should establish that users can access the resources required for their work, not merely confirm that data reached its destination. Clear responsibility for resolving post-cutover issues reduces the burden on internal IT teams.
Security configuration cannot be deferred until employees have settled into Microsoft 365. A newly provisioned tenant may introduce unfamiliar exposure through identity settings or insufficiently configured data protection policies. Microsoft Defender, Intune and Purview provide controls that can be incorporated into the destination design. Providers differ in whether they configure these protections during migration planning or treat them as later projects. Licensing decisions also influence which controls are available and whether organizations purchase functionality they will actually use.
Support arrangements become particularly relevant once the migration specialists have completed their assignment. Changes to compliance requirements or user access may expose decisions made during the original transfer. Continuity between migration and support personnel helps retain that context.
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Cloud management is an effective tool that enables the IT professionals to control the workloads, ensure the standard configuration, resource consumption and detect the possible disruption of services that could impact critical business operations. Clear governance policies, automated monitoring and well-defined access controls can help businesses maintain reliable cloud environments while managing operational complexity.
How Does Cloud Management Benefit Businesses?
Cloud management makes it possible for companies to have more options when dealing with varying loads without making significant investments in infrastructure. Organizations can scale computing capacity to match project demands, support remote teams and deploy digital services across different locations. For companies operating in Latin America, this flexibility can help accommodate expansion into new markets while allowing technology resources to evolve alongside business requirements.
The other significant benefit relates to visibility in finances. Centralized oversight helps organizations understand spending across cloud services, identify underused resources and select suitable service plans. These insights support more informed budgeting and reduce the likelihood of paying for capacity that delivers little practical value. Businesses can also evaluate service usage against departmental needs to allocate technology budgets more effectively.
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