Dell AppSync vs Hitachi ShadowImage comparison

Dell AppSync is a data management software solution provided by Dell Technologies. It is designed to simplify and streamline data protection, replication, and recovery operations for virtualized environments. The solution specifically focuses on application-consistent data protection, allowing organizations to safeguard critical applications and ensure data availability.

AppSync integrates with leading virtualization platforms such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. It provides centralized management and automation capabilities for various data protection tasks, including backup, replication, recovery, and testing. The software leverages snapshot-based technology to create point-in-time copies of virtual machines, enabling efficient and non-disruptive backups.

With Dell AppSync, administrators can define policies and schedules to automate backup and recovery operations. The software provides granular recovery options, allowing users to restore individual files, folders, or entire virtual machines as needed. It also facilitates data replication to remote sites for disaster recovery purposes, ensuring business continuity in case of a system failure or disaster.

Dell AppSync Features

Dell AppSync offers the following features:

• Granular Recovery Options: Users can restore individual files, folders, or entire virtual machines as needed. This flexibility enables efficient and targeted recovery operations, minimizing downtime and data loss.

• Data Replication for Disaster Recovery: The software facilitates data replication to remote sites, enabling organizations to create a disaster recovery infrastructure. By replicating data to a secondary location, AppSync ensures business continuity and minimizes the impact of system failures or disasters.

• Non-disruptive Backups: AppSync utilizes snapshot-based technology to create point-in-time copies of virtual machines. This approach allows backups to be performed without disrupting the production environment, ensuring continuous operations and reducing the impact on performance.

• Centralized Management: The solution offers a centralized management interface that provides a unified view of the backup and recovery operations across the virtualized environment. Administrators can efficiently monitor and control data protection tasks from a single console.

• Application Testing and Development: AppSync supports the creation of writable snapshots, allowing developers and testers to work with real production data without impacting the primary environment. This feature enhances application development and testing processes.

• Integration with Virtualization Platforms: It integrates seamlessly with leading virtualization platforms such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V to ensure that organizations can leverage their existing virtualization infrastructure.

• Copy Data Management: Dell AppSync empowers application owners to meet the demand for copy data, whether it's for data repurposing, operational recovery, or disaster recovery. It simplifies, orchestrates, and automates the process of generating and consuming copies of production data, providing application owners with self-service capabilities.

• Deep Application Integrations: AppSync offers deep integrations with various enterprise applications, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server & Exchange, SAP HANA, Kubernetes, and others. This enables application-consistent copies of data stores and individual virtual machine recoveries, ensuring data integrity and reliability.

• Instant Copy Creation and Restore: The solution provides automated and instantaneous copy creation and restore capabilities. Users can quickly generate copies of production data for various purposes, such as testing, development, or analytics, and efficiently restore data when needed.

• Multigeneration Copies for Data Repurposing: With AppSync, organizations can create multiple generations of copies for data repurposing, then they can leverage different versions of copies for specific use cases, enhancing flexibility and agility in application workflows.

• VMware Environment Support: AppSync enables VM-consistent copies of data stores and individual VM recovery specifically for VMware environments. This ensures that the data is protected and recoverable in a consistent state, reducing the risk of corruption or application failures.

• Integrated Copy Data Management: Users provided with an integrated copy data management capability for all Dell primary storage platforms. The solution leverages the abstraction of underlying Dell storage replication technologies, allowing storage administrators to perform initial setup and policy management while empowering application owners with self-service copy data operations.

Dell AppSync Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Dell AppSync are:

Reviews from Real Users

Rhett Waldock, a Programmer Analyst at Mankato Clinic, Ltd. notes that “Dell AppSynch has shortened the data applications between our development and production because it had a significant speed increase and reduced complexity.”

A PeerSpot user and pre-sales specialist at a computer software company observes that “This solution is very helpful and easy to use. You cannot manage storage without it.”