Entries categorized under “Deduplication”

O'Reilly School of Technology does what many organizations now do when daily backing up its production data: it uses array-based snapshots on its NAS filer. However its internal policies call for it to copy each set of weekly or monthly array-based snapshots to another storage media (disk or tape) for long term data retention and offsite protection. (read more)

Backup appliances are going virtual for one very simple reason: organizations want to virtualize all of their applications in their small, branch and remote offices to include their backup software while retaining the ease of deployment that physical backup appliances offer. As this occurs, there are five key factors that they need to keep in mind in order to select the right VBA for them. (read more)

Backup appliances are rapidly becoming the de facto standard for organizations as a means to quickly and easily solve their backup challenges. But their availability as a turnkey solution creates a new dilemma for organizations: how to appropriately size a backup appliance for their environment with midsized businesses particularly challenged in making this assessment. As it turns out, "1:1" is a good rule of thumb for midsized business to follow to choose the right size backup appliance for them and why new appliances like the EMC Avamar Business Edition are so well suited for their environments. (read more)

This past week I received an email from someone asking for my help in their process of buying a backup appliance. This individual had just downloaded the DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide but, due to the number of models included in the Buyer's Guide (over 60), was looking for some recommendations from me as to which one to buy. While I sent this individual a list of backup appliances to look at more closely, it brought to my attention that there are five questions every organization should ask and answer before buying a backup appliance. (read more)

Mixed physical and virtual IT infrastructures and the protection of them are now a reality in enterprises of almost every size. But with these environments now in place, enterprises are turning their attention to using either a single product or interface to manage data protection across all of it. Quest's Software's release of NetVault Backup 9.0 gives them two paths to follow to arrive at this common centralized data protection management destination. (read more)

To say "All virtual machine (VM) backup software is the same" is like saying "All birds can fly." While VM backup software solutions can and certainly do protect VMs, the techniques they use, what hypervisors they support and how they manage backup and recovery vary greatly between them. Understanding and quantifying these differences becomes especially important for those organizations looking to select the best solution to protect the growing number of VMs in their environment. (read more)

KISS - "Keep IT Simple, Stupid" - is the objective of almost every small and midsized business (SMB) on the planet. However SMBs and storage providers sometimes define "simple" in very different ways, especially when it comes to performing tasks like data protection and business continuity. Taking this challenge head-on, VMware has tightly integrated EMC Avamar technology in its new vSphere Data Protection offering to provide SMBs with the level of simplicity that they expect and need. (read more)

Many SMBs are interested in moving beyond virtualization's upfront consolidation and cost reduction benefits to also achieving improved availability, data protection and business continuity for their applications. But to date the costs and technical complexities of pursuing those goals have held many of them back. VMware's recent vSphere 5.1 Data Protection release changes that as VMware leverages EMC's deep backup and recovery expertise to address these specific SMB needs. (read more)

The ramifications of organizations not getting data under control are significant. Recent analyst studies find that structured data stores may grow by as much as 60% annually and unstructured data stores by as much as 80% annually. Aggravating this situation, once all of this data is consolidated, the hardware costs associated with scaling the storage infrastructure to accommodate this data growth may be a factor of up to 10x of what it costs prior to consolidation. (read more)

Over the last decade or so EMC has assembled quite a collection of enterprise backup products: Legato NetWorker enterprise backup software in 2003; Avamar deduplication backup software in 2006; and, most recently, Data Domain deduplication appliances in 2009. As acquired each one enabled EMC to address key challenges that users faced at the time. However with EMC's release of NetWorker 8.0 one sees more clearly how EMC is bringing its larger vision to life: the transformation of these individual products into a single, comprehensive backup solution that meets the specific requirements of large enterprises. (read more)

Disk-based backup and deduplication have been godsends for many organizations looking for a fast, effective way to protect and store their growing amounts of data. However Oracle DBAs still sometimes feel like these two technologies have come up short in ways that have not adequately been addressed. SEPATON's new DBeXstream technology changes this by giving Oracle DBAs access to these two technologies with the corresponding increases in throughput and deduplication ratios that they were originally led to believe they would see. (read more)

Few IT administrators willingly want to refer to themselves as "backup gurus" under the best of circumstances. But as organizations virtualize their environments, even grizzled veterans who were previously comfortable with their backups are now unsure of the best way to proceed so their backups are completed quickly, easily and within designated backup windows. (read more)

In a little over ten years server virtualization has resulted in organizations virtualizing their application servers in growing numbers. However these same organizations are still coming to grips with the emerging complexities associated with protecting and recovering their newly virtualized applications. Rectifying this requires that companies put in place software specifically tailored for virtual machine (VM) protection that automates and simplifies backup without re-introducing its costs and complexities back into the mix. (read more)

Backup software is often rightly viewed as the "sticky" part of an organization's backup infrastructure. But as organizations look to use the right backup solution for specific applications, the need to centralize where that backup data is stored and then how it is managed are becoming the larger issues companies need to address. As this change in perspective occurs, EMC Data Domain Boost (DD Boost) software is shaping up to become the new glue that helps hold enterprise backup infrastructures together. (read more)

In the last few years deduplication and backup have become almost inseparable. Yet where a large degree of separation still exists is in how deduplication is implemented with different deduplication techniques implemented at various stages in the backup process. Dedupe 2.0 promises to fix this jumbled approach to deduplication but to fix it, there first has to be someone delivering it. HP's new StoreOnce Catalyst release starts to introduce some order in today's backup process by doing more than simply delivering on its Dedupe 2.0 vision. It potentially gives organizations some hours back in their day as well. (read more)

Today there is no shortage of purpose built backup appliances (PBBAs) from which enterprises have to choose. However that list shortens considerably when enterprises factor in how well a PBBA meets their backup performance requirements, integrates in their environment and satisfies the ever growing number of compliance requirements to which they are subject. EMC largely addresses these concerns with its new Data Domain DD990 system and latest Avamar 6.1 release as they combine to make a strong case as to why these EMC PBBAs should be at the top of every enterprise's PBBA short list. (read more)

When Symantec shipped its first backup appliances in late 2010, it could arguably be said the primary intention of these appliances was to simplify the deployment of Backup Exec and NetBackup at customer sites by shipping both hardware and software as a single SKU. While that still holds true, these appliances also opened the door for them to offer specific features and assume their own unique identities. The new NetBackup 5220 begins to deliver on that promise as it now offers specific software and features that make it much more than just a "server with NetBackup software pre-installed on it." (read more)

It's no secret that 'Big Data' is becoming a 'Big Problem' for organizations from a data and storage management perspective. However what organizations may fail to realize is that the best way to solve their Big Data problems is NOT by mindlessly throwing more resources at them. Rather it is to look at Big Data more strategically and then tackle the data management problems it creates in one fell swoop using software like CommVault® Simpana® and its OnePass technology. (read more)

Using EMC Data Domain systems to deduplicate Oracle database backups has been one of the most successful use cases for Data Domain systems to date. Today EMC provides the solution that many organizations are looking for to better control and manage their Oracle databases by integrating DD Boost with Oracle's native Recovery Manager (RMAN) utility. DD Boost software provides advanced integration between EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems and applications for faster, more efficient backup and recovery. (read more)

In this fourth and final part of our interview series with GreenBytes CEO Bob Petrocelli, we hear about a three-second failover between canisters used in Solidarity, a solid-state storage array solution. If you're not looking, says Petrocelli, you could miss the failover. (read more)

In the first part of our interview series with GreenBytes CEO Bob Petrocelli, we got a glimpse into the company's groundwork with solid-state drives (SSDs) that led to the development of Solidarity. It is a high-availability (HA), globally optimized SSD storage array solution receiving a great deal of attention because it does away with magnetic drives and delivers a massive 200,000-plus IOPS performance. Today I resume my interview with Petrocelli as he lays out the configurations and processes that make Solidarity hum. (read more)

Inline deduplication data storage solutions provider GreenBytes, Inc. recently released a new high-availability (HA), globally optimized solid-state drive (SSD) storage array solution called Solidarity that is garnering a lot of attention. Solidarity offers inline real-time deduplication and compression via a dual-controller unit outfitted entirely with SSD storage. The buzz over Solidarity is in large part because of its 200,000-plus IOPS performance--with deduplication and compression enabled. (read more)

Recently I have had number of engaging conversations regarding how backup management is evolving. On the upside, many of the challenges associated with managing backup are definitely on the decline. But there are aspects of managing backup that are probably never going away and which every size organization needs to be prepared to manage indefinitely. (read more)

Companies are adopting server virtualization at an accelerating rate each year and, as they do, the need for performance on the back end hardware is growing right along with it. To accommodate this, enterprises need a way to increase the I/O throughput of their virtual machines (VMs). Today, I continue my blog series talking with Virsto Software CEO Mark Davis where we discuss the VM I/O blender problem, what it is and how Virsto boosts VM performance using a hypervisor plug-in that is up to ten times faster than what VM hypervisors natively provide. (read more)

On the surface, the idea of transitioning from tape-based to disk-based backup sounds relatively straightforward. But managing backups across multiple sites takes on a life of its own with virtualized machine (VM) backup adding yet another level of complexity to the mix. It is when the Daughters of Charity Health Systems (DCHS) considered this mix of variables and who was in the best position to ensure success that it opted to roll out Data Domain in its environment. (read more)