Entries categorized under “Deduplication”

DCIG regularly talks to organizations that are confronted with continuing data growth, ongoing tape problems, saturated WAN links and overworked IT staff who recognize that changes to their existing backup environment are needed. However non-profits such as the Daughters of Charity Health Systems (DCHS) with limited funding for new technology purchases are particularly challenged as they have no margin for error. (read more)

A little over two (2) years ago I did an interview with ExaGrid System's CEO Bill Andrews about the same time that EMC and NetApp were engaged in a bidding war over Data Domain. In that interview Andrews expressed concern about EMC winning the battle for Data Domain and how that might negatively impact ExaGrid. But as EMC and ExaGrid both respectively announced overwhelmingly positive numbers this week, it turns out that EMC's acquisition of Data Domain has served both companies well. (read more)

The big news out of IDC is that in December 2011 it upped its forecast as to how quickly it expects the purpose built backup appliance (PBBA) market to grow in the years to come. But this heightened revenue forecast provides a glimpse into why enterprises are selecting PBBAs and which providers they are choosing. Among these reasons, it appears clear that enterprises view PBBAs as an effective solution to address their backup challenges with EMC their top choice as it already holds a big lead in the PBBA market and is poised to extend it further going forward. (read more)

Implementing and then managing DR is still no "gimme." It requires that SMBs select a solution that offers the right five features so they can successfully execute on a DR initiative in their environment for 2012 and beyond. (read more)

Choosing the right cloud-based archiving and backup solution may well be one of the most important - and difficult - decisions facing small and midsize organizations in 2012. However a recent acquisition by Imation should contribute to easing which solution organizations should choose in 2012. This acquisition did more than give Imation a cloud-based backup offering. It put Imation among an elite class of providers that offer both local and cloud-based data backup, recovery and archiving options from a single solution. (read more)

Choosing the right cloud-based archiving and backup solution may well be one of the most important - and difficult - decisions facing small and midsize organizations in 2012. However a recent acquisition by Imation should contribute to easing which solution organizations should choose in 2012. This acquisition did more than give Imation a cloud-based backup offering. It put Imation among an elite class of providers that offer both local and cloud-based data backup, recovery and archiving options from a single solution. (read more)

About a month ago I started to put some thought and research into what might emerge as the top trends of 2012 by keeping a notebook next to my keyboard so as ideas struck me I could jot them down. Now as I look at the four trends that made today's short list, they ended up being on the surface ones that I hear, write and talk about every day. (read more)

Today is the last business day of 2011 and with it DCIG brings you our top most read and referenced blog entries. Each blog entry is compelling, yet timeless. What we find ironic about these blogs is that even as topics like "cloud," "deduplication," and "virtualization" generate a great deal of buzz, simple blog entries on storage, backup and data center labeling outperform them due to their foundations for IT leaders and practitioners. (read more)

Before DCIG announces its top three blog entries of 2011 tomorrow, this year we thought we would do something different and take a look at some other blog entries that garnered a great deal of attention throughout 2011 but not quite enough to reach the Top 10. That being the case, an honorable mention for these blog entries was in order. Further, what is notable about these entries is that, with the exception of one, they were all published in 2011. (read more)

Like many organizations do at this time of year, DCIG takes time to reflect on the past year. As part of doing so, DCIG takes a look at what blog entry topics caught the fancy of people in the past year and, as happens every year, the blog entries that are the most read are a mix of what I expect and what catch me by surprise. This year is no different. So without further ado, here are the Top 10 most read blog entries on DCIG's site in 2011 with today's blog entry covering those entries that came in at the numbers 8, 9 and 10 positions. (read more)

"Dedupe everywhere" is becoming a guiding principle in how enterprises now strategically look to deploy data deduplication into their organizations. But it is now recognized that these organizations need a common mechanism to deduplicate data throughout their environment to optimally manage and scale it. It is in this context that HP recently announced its new StoreOnce B6200 Backup System along with a number of StoreOnce feature enhancements as HP takes its deduplication story further into the enterprise. (read more)

Using the "cloud" for backup is the primary context in which people think about the cloud when asked about it. Yet if forced to list what features an "enterprise cloud-based backup provider" offers, it is questionable if one could do so. So as DCIG prepares to release its inaugural Buyer's Guide in 2012 on Enterprise Cloud-based Backup products, one of its first tasks was to define what constitutes an "enterprise cloud-based backup" offering. (read more)

In the last few years, the need for backup software to support VMware has become almost a must-have for any backup solution to remain relevant in the years to come. The need for organizations to back up both physical and virtual machines means that addressing data protection has become increasingly complex. This is why the new Revinetix RevOS 4.0 provides an all-in-one solution to bridge the physical-virtual gap that other backup software solutions may not accomplish without increasing complexity. (read more)

Looking back at the two fall VMworld 2011 conferences, there were more sessions available on how organizations could protect their VMware environments than many could probably attend in a month. Further, each of these sessions presented a number of backup and recovery tips that left organizations the task of sorting through and then prioritizing which ones to implement. Among these tips presented, three emerged that every shop should look to adopt regardless of how they move forward with the protection of their VMware infrastructure as a whole. (read more)

Deduplicating, disk-based backup appliances are now part of almost every organization's data protection conversation. But this does not mean every organization should approach or view them in the same context. While many companies may want strictly a "backup target that does deduplication" that works with their existing backup software, there is an equally large contingent of companies that want a backup appliance that possesses features that enable them to build out a more comprehensive data protection strategy. (read more)

VMware will hit a tipping point with 2011 with VMware customers expected to cross the 50% virtualization threshold by the end of the year. But as VMware adoption accelerates, a hurdle that every organization faces as it looks to implement VMware vSphere is identifying a back-end storage system that delivers the appropriate levels of availability and performance at the right price point. Last week the new Symantec FileStore N8300 v5.7 with its new deduplication feature gave organizations a glimpse into how that may be accomplished. (read more)

Last week the DCIG team attended the Fall 2011 Storage Networking World (SNW) show in Orlando, FL. While there were a lot of cool storage companies, only two meetings left any kind of impression on me: one with IBM and another with SNIA. (read more)

EMC has seen that organizations spend approximately $4 billion annually on backup and recovery software yet still struggle to fully realize the full value of this investment. To close this gap EMC has done a substantial amount of work over the last couple of years to integrate its Avamar, NetWorker and Data Domain solutions. The end result is new flexibility for its channel partners to configure these individual products in various combinations so they may be deployed and function as a single, logical solution in small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). (read more)

Enterprises have been hearing about the value and veracity of public cloud for years even as Symantec has been getting feedback on its value proposition from its public cloud customers. The message that Symantec has received is that "ripping and replacing" is not an option. Rather enterprises want and need revolutionary infrastructure with evolutionary products and prices. (read more)

Over the years big data has crept into the everyday life of systems administrators. Attempts to solve the big data problem in both block and file storage emerged as data management software. While data management software struggled to get a footing, deduplication and compression took off stunting data management software's growth. Deduplication and compression technologies have well known capabilities in both the storage and information disciplines. However, they differ in a significant way. These technologies do not ease the burden of information management. (read more)

The move from tape to disk as a primary backup target had raised serious questions about what the future held for data protection and recovery management (DPRM) software. The argument was that with disk replacing tape in the backup process, why would anyone need DPRM software? Turns out, the reasons for companies continuing to deploy DPRM software are even more compelling than before. (read more)

Today DCIG and SMB Research are pleased to jointly announce the availability of a new, comprehensive DCIG 2011 Midrange Deduplication Appliance Buyer's Guide that weights, scores and ranks over 30 deduplication appliances with starting prices that range from $20,000 to $100,000. This Buyer's Guide gives small, medium and large enterprises the resources they need to assist them in making what is becoming a critical buying decision: selecting a disk-based solution that deduplicates their backup data. (read more)

"Yeah, we do that." That's the response many software providers of storage virtualization give when asked if they can offer a specific storage function. But that "Can do" attitude reveals the heart of the problem of these providers: they end up acquiring a "jack of all trades, master of none" reputation. Today FalconStor Software still answers, "Yeah, we do that," but now provides a more well articulated service-oriented data protection story to complement its storage solutions. (read more)

As DCIG and SMB Research put together the DCIG 2011 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide, we became aware that Arkeia was up to something special with its deduplication technology. Arkeia had in late 2009 acquired Kadena and was in the process of absorbing and incorporating its technology into its core Arkeia Network Backup solution. Now that the release of Arkeia v9 is official, it takes the best of what deduplication has to offer and makes it better in the form of Progressive Deduplication™ technology. (read more)

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is emerging as one of the hot trends for 2011 and beyond. But successful VDI deployments, especially large ones, do not happen by accident and deduplication and solid state drives (SSDs) are now viewed as key technologies to deliver on a successful VDI deployment. The trick is identifying an appropriate and risk-averse way in which to implement these technologies without incurring some of the unpleasant side effects they can cause. (read more)