CommVault(NASDAQ: CVLT), an Oceanport, N.J.-based data protection and data management vendor, is leveraging its Legal Hold and eDiscovery feature-sets within its Simpana 7.0 software suite and its channel partners to help businesses that are found to be non-compliant minimize their risks of legal fines and sanctions.
The CommVault Simpana 7.0 solution, first released last year, saw updates to its eDiscovery/Legal Hold capabilities this past April. The solution is a unified data management platform that aids businesses with data protection, archiving, replication, resource management, backup recovery and more. Simon Taylor, senior director of information access and management at CommVault, said the new feature enhancements allow users to more easily find, recover, discover, index and archive important information across the enterprise.
“The savings-potential for organizations is huge because businesses don’t need to deploy new resources at any time,” Taylor said. “We offer organizations a single-licensing option with our unified data management solution.”
Paul Dier, Canadian partner development manager at CommVault, said Legal Hold is the next evolution of Simpana that builds on the benefits of data management. Enterprise-class accounts are increasingly tasked with protecting their information and company, especially in the Canadian market place, Dier said. That’s why he said it’s important for CommVault to be able to work strategically with its reseller partners across Canada to further drive sales and deployment of Simpana.
“In 2002, we had about 50 partners in Canada,” Dier said. “Today, we now have about 20 where about 85 per cent of our overall Canadian revenue is driven by the channel. In the past, we found we had too many partners and we couldn’t develop them. A lot of those partners were one-offs and did single deals with no indication for future business. Now in Canada, we have about four to five partners per region which helps us streamline our focus on every aspect of a partner’s business better.”
While CommVault has reduced the number of resellers it has in Canada over the past few years, Dier said the company is still open to adding new partners in particular geographic regions such as in Vancouver, Edmonton and out on the East coast.
“We look for partners with solid storage practices, who have a focus on delivering value to customers, and who have strong financial backgrounds,” Dier said.
Partners who sell Simpana software will see further revenue opportunities with CommVault’s additional service packs, including one for Legal Hold, he said.
“We offer the solution as a more holistic approach for data management,” Dier said. “It’s also a scalable solution, which is one of the main reasons why partners come to us.”
Establishing a Legal Hold with CommVault’s Simpana solution is important for any organization, no matter their size or industry-focus, Taylor said. All valuable business information should be archived and backed up to ensure all data is preserved in its original format should a legal matter arise. With Legal Hold in the Simpana software suite, users are also able to maintain an audit trail. During the legal hold process, information is physically gathered and copied into a separate repository away from the existing Simpana data management environment. CommVault’s eDiscovery technology works hand in hand with Legal Hold and utilizes a Web interface that allows users to index content and search through pertinent business data.
“Legal Hold is the ability to collect information and place it into a framework so it can’t be modified,” Taylor explains. “We encourage our customers to have a backup and archive their information to ensure the context and information remains legitimate. Firms need to be able to keep records in a durable and authentic form when going into a court case and submitting evidence.”
Today’s organizations are interested in being compliant and most are looking for solutions that have eDiscovery and Legal Hold capabilities, Taylor said. For channel partners, he said the most traction right now is in the financial, pharmaceutical, government and education sectors. However, he said the Simpana solution will work well in an organization that has anywhere from 10 employees to 20,000 and beyond.