Rubrik reinvented data management with the user in mind. By approaching data management from a user’s perspective, we’ve distilled a complex process into a click or swipe. Setup a policy to backup data from multiple sources with a user experience similar to an iPhone. Create a replication and archival schedule to public or private cloud in 30 seconds. Recover entire virtual machines, databases, and files instantly. This is end-to-end data management. Simplified.
The Consumer Experience of Enterprise
Crystal is Rubrik's intuitive data management platform that makes all of the above scenarios a reality. It transforms complicated enterprise backup, disaster recovery, data archival, and copy data management workflows from a burden to a joy.
One of the reasons we built Rubrik was to bring a consumer-grade experience to enterprise software. To provide the simplicity, easy of use, and pain free delight of popular consumer products, such as Facebook, Google, and Dropbox, we created a team composed of engineers from both consumer and enterprise, including the builders of Google Maps, Apple iOS, and Box.What is Crystal?
What is Crystal?
Crystal is composed of two principal components: the Crystal UI and Crystal REST API. The Crystal UI focuses on building products with usability at its core. This is exemplified in our policy-driven SLA management, Google-like search engine, and data archival setup.
Example 1: SLA Policy Engine
Set up global policies that map to your business SLAs. As a result, our customers reap massive time savings vs. configuring individual backup, replication, and archival jobs.
Example 2: Global Predictive Search
Our global predictive search allows you to instantly locate files, VMs, and applications stored on-site or in the cloud.
We designed these functions to drastically reduce complex workflow management to one or two clicks, as easy as enabling Wifi or creating a new contact on the iPhone. The Crystal UI unifies and creates a design standard based off Material Design, the foundation elements that made dashboard UI intuitive. Material Design is a specification that defines a set of design principles that allow us to maintain great design at scale, across all features and products we make. We’ve customized it to add components and principles which make dashboard UIs for enterprise administrators easy to use.
The Crystal REST API focuses on bringing that same simplicity and ease of use via our HTTP REST API, exposing the power of the Rubrik solution in a granular, consumable form. This allows for the creation of a variety tools and solutions to be built on top of it. Our customers have built previously complex workflows, such as customized deployments, data recovery orchestration, and backup automation, into a radically simple and integrated process within their current environments. An API-driven architecture like ours is incredibly important as IT professionals progress a service through various lifecycle stages along with other third party tools and applications. APIs connect all those disparate moving parts, enabling a true automated orchestration engine.
Our HTTP REST API is designed to be easy to understand and uses the Swagger Spec. Swagger specification allows us to describe and document our REST APIs. Additionally, open source tools easily integrate with the Crystal REST API to make further customization, and development on top of REST APIs extremely pain free. Rubrik Crystal UI consumes the same API that is published and provided to users without any additional licensing.
In summary, Crystal is how we build functionality based on anticipated user needs and deliver a consumer-grade experience that is simple to connect, enable, and expand. This creates a rich ecosystem of task automation, bringing the intuitive intelligence we expect in the products we use every day to the enterprise.
Stay tuned on how we built the Crystal UI and REST API in a follow-up blog post!