Entries categorized under “Data Reduction”

The enterprise data center continues to evolve, driven by ever-growing amounts of data and new demands for data availability - local and remote. These demands are driving companies to identify alternatives to existing data protection methods with deduplicating disk-based storage systems, such as Quantum's DXi Series, becoming a preferred backup target. However deduplicating data is only half the equation. To fully deliver on enterprise data protection, companies need efficient, cost-effective options so they can move this deduplicated data off-site for long term compliance and disaster recovery, or centralize and consolidate data from remote offices. (read more)

Deduplication is currently one of the hottest topics in data protection but it takes more than one form. The CommVault® Simpana® software suite implements deduplication as a Single Instance Store (SIS). In this iteration, SIS deduplicates archived and backed up files at the file level and then only stores one occurrence of the file. In part 2 of this interview series with CommVault Systems' Senior Director of Information Access and Management, Simon Taylor, elaborates on how Simpana leverages SIS for information search and data mobility as well as how this approach complements block-based deduplication approaches found on certain disk-based storage solutions. (read more)

One would think that at some point organizations would reach the tipping point for storage consumption and that year-over-year storage capacity growth rates of 30%, 50%, 100% or more would come to an end, or at least slow down. If so, it hasn't occurred yet and, if anything, it shows every sign of continuing for the foreseeable future. Nowhere is this more evident than with the amount of data that companies need to archive and retain. (read more)

As the deduplication debates rage on, it is easy to forget that the debate occurs on many fronts. The debate that tends to receive the most attention is on which method of deduplication is better, "inline" or "post-processing", as it pertains to its use by disk-based backup appliances. However in the "Which is the best deduplication?" debate, an angle that tends to get overlooked is the one between file-based, such as is used by the CommVault® Simpana® software suite, and block-based deduplication. (read more)

Backup to disk is now seen as "The" solution for any company looking to solve its backup problems. Factor in deduplication as part of the disk-based backup solution and it is easy for companies to believe that they are well on their way to solving their backup problems. To a certain degree, that's true. Introducing disk almost always solves the immediate corporate pain of failed backups while shortening their backup windows. In fact, I am only aware of a few, isolated instances where that is not the case. (read more)

However as companies move towards archiving data on disk-based storage systems, you can't just always build bigger buildings or knock down walls. If anything, companies want to store more data in a smaller footprint. Making it more complicated, companies are creating exponentially more data than they were 10, 5 and even 2 years ago and keeping it for longer periods of time. Factor in mobile devices that manipulate existing data and create new data and the increasing use of video in corporations and the result is millions, billions and even trillions of file-based data elements that create thousands of terabytes of data. (read more)

One of the more agonizing choices that some companies face when looking to implement the same deduplication scheme across the enterprise is quantifying which version of deduplication to use: inline or post-processing. From a purist's viewpoint, inline (deduplicating data as it is ingested) is sometimes viewed as the best approach since data is deduplicated immediately as it is ingested. (read more)

One of the toughest aspects of being a storage administrator is finding reliable information that one can use to make decisions about competitive storage hardware or software products, especially when it comes to making decisions about newer technologies like Single Instance Storage (SIS). Even when data does become available, it is often too generic or not applicable to their situation so the individual is left in the position of either trusting the vendor's literature or doing some level of testing. In the case of Blessing Hospital's Technical Support Analyst II, Doug Barry, he opted for the latter. (read more)

Israel's The Marker and Globes Online are reporting this morning that IBM has made it official that it is acquiring Diligent Technologies. Though the two sources differ as to the terms of the deal (Globes Online reports $200 million while The Marker reports $168 million), my sources in Israel's IT community tell me that the $168 million number is the more accurate of the two numbers. Under the terms of the deal, IBM will pay $160 million for Diligent's intellectual property while the balance would be used to keep some of the existing employees onboard. (read more)

It is for these types of reasons that Quantum's field marketing and sales organization has developed what it refers to as its regional solutions specialists or "Tiger" teams to help businesses determine what size DXi deduplicating appliance is the best fit for its customer environments. When dealing with Quantum customers, their mission is to ensure and verify every customer has a positive experience with Quantum's deduplicating appliances. To do this, a core tenant of their responsibilities is doing the front end analysis that includes customer interviews and site surveys. (read more)

Day 1 of the Spring 2008 Storage Networking World is Orlando, Florida, is now in the books and with it came some interesting tidbits but nothing what I consider earth-shattering - at least at this point. First briefing of the conference was with Permabit's CEO Tom Cook, CTO Jered Floyd and VP of Marketing, Mike Ivanov. (read more)

I have expressed skepticism in the past about Diligent Technologies' ProtecTIER™ in light of the fact its primary go-to-market strategy is the enterprise open systems and mainframe environments. This strategy prompts me to exercise extreme diligence about their technology and architecture before endorsing it. The reason? The speeds and feeds that ProtecTIER is likely to encounter in enterprise shops are unlike what inline deduplication appliances will experience in small and midsize businesses and enterprises. (read more)

A majority of organizations still rely on tape as their primary means of data protection. However, with the increasing popularity of disk-based backup, companies are repurposing tape for their offsite data storage and longer term data retention needs. As they do so, new requirements for tape encryption and encryption key management are emerging. I recently had conversations with two individuals at Quantum Corporation to discuss these trends in data protection and how Quantum is responding to them. (read more)