CommVault launches latest Simpana, eyes bridge to analytics

CommVault, a data management company, on Monday launched Simpana 10, its flagship platform, with the aim of expanding to analytics and big data.

The company, which is holding a powwow in New York on Monday, said that Simpana 10 has more than 300 features designed to protect data, spread information around to workers beyond the IT department and cut storage costs.

CommVault also launched consulting and professional services to go along with analytics support.

Analysts see Simpana 10 as something that can fuel CommVault revenue and push it into analytics more. For instance, Jefferies analyst Aaron Schwartz said:

Simpana 10 will include upgrades to core data management capabilities and product expansion to ancillary markets such as analytics. The related product cycle will be driven by capacity expansion and upgrades in the near term with new product growth longer term.

Schwartz added that CommVault will ultimately move more toward a subscription model and less on partnerships with hardware vendors such as Dell. In addition, Schwartz said that CommVault is likely to become more of an infrastructure management player.

CommVault has had a habit of delivering better-than-expected quarters. According to Wall Street, CommVault is expected to report net income of $106.3 million on revenue of $490.6 million for fiscal 2013, which ends March 31.

Among the key details of Simpana 10:

• The software has a virtual repository called ContentStore, which opens up data to be repurposed and analyzed across an enterprise. Ultimately, CommVault expects the technology to lead to automated data retention and integration with analytics and business intelligence tools.
• Automated recovery tools for backup and replication and support for Windows Server 2012, IBM DB2, SAP and Oracle applications.
• Long-term email retention tools.
• Tighter integration with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware.
• Workflow automation for IT executives and parallel deduplication.
• End user data access via mobile apps and Web dashboards.