Archive for September 2010

The Down Low on Data Deduplication

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

If you’re thinking about data protection solutions, you’ve undoubtedly considered the performance optimization benefits offered by deduplication. But, are you somewhat baffled by the different approaches offered? Do you wonder how to effectively compare one vendor’s dedupe technology to another’s?

In general terms, deduplication is the process of identifying and removing or omitting any duplicate data found in an organization’s backup data sets. This is important because whether you’re using on-premise backup software, Cloud-based online backup or a hybrid backup appliance combining both on-premise and the Cloud, deduplication helps reduce the overall size of backup data (or backup data “footprints”) that needs to be transmitted over the LAN or WAN and stored to a secondary disk target, either on-premise or in the Cloud. Duplicate data removed or omitted is often replaced by some type of pointer to the original, remaining file or data block.

However, when comparing different vendor implementations, it’s critical to drill down deeper and evaluate specific characteristics of the deduplication processes offered. For instance, it’s important that you consider:

The type of data deduplication used in the backup process. The most common types are time-based duplication and horizontal deduplication.
Where the deduplication occurs in the backup process. Deduplication typically occurs at the front-end source (via server-side software or an inline appliance), at the back-end target (post-process deduplication), or at a combination of both (mixed source-based and target-based deduplication).
The size of data processed for deduplication. Deduplication can occur at the file level, at the block level, or at the byte level, and the size of the data deduplicated can have a significant impact on the overall optimization and efficiency of the solution.
The storage location of deduplicated data. There are three places to store deduplicated data: on a local disk target, on a remote disk target either on-premise or in the Cloud, or on tape.
The impact of deduplication on performance. Watch for performance bottlenecks and lack of optimization for LAN or WAN implementations. Also, some systems are over-dependent on local deduplication hardware. Others can slow performance because they require repeated checks and verifications of local nodes to ensure existence of deduplicated blocks as part of each backup process.
Costs to deploy or grow the deduplication environment. As your data environment grows, so will your need for extra nodes or controllers. Will your investment in underlying licensed hardware support future deduplication needs?

Of course, when you’re mulling over backup and recovery solutions, deduplication is only one piece of the puzzle. You’ll also have to consider how data compression and encryption fit into your overall strategy, so stay tuned. We’ll talk more about those optimization technologies in upcoming posts.

For more tips about choosing the backup and recovery system that best fits your needs, check out our new white paper, “Deduplication and Beyond: Optimizing Performance for Backup and Recovery,” available here.

Tags: backup and recovery, Data Protection, dedupe, deduplication, hybrid solutions, online backup, remote backup
Posted in Recovery Best Practices | No Comments »

Disk Backup + Virtualization + Cloud = Better Disaster Recovery

Monday, September 20th, 2010

With DRJ Fall World, currently in progress in San Diego,we thought we’d write another post about one of the hottest storage-related topics this year – disaster recovery. The title of the post was influenced by a recent writeup by 451 Group analyst Simon Robinson, who noted that three disruptive trends (disk, virtualization and the Cloud) “have fundamentally changed the nature of data protection and, accordingly, delivered new value to enterprises.”

This is even more true for SMBs, especially when it comes to DR.

These disruptive changes have transformed the market, making enterprise-class DR services more affordable for resource-constrained SMBs, who in the past were relegated to either setting up a costly second data center and/or storing backup tapes offsite and crossing their fingers they’d be able to restore both their critical servers AND data quickly in the event of a site disaster.

This disruption is taking place just at the right time. A recent report from Forrester Research found that the “misperception of BC/DR spending is changing because organizations have become better at identifying and measuring risks, have a better understanding of economic impact of disasters and less tolerance for downtime and data loss. Also, more regulations and questions from partners and customers about disaster recovery preparedness are prompting companies to take DR more seriously.”

In addition:

More than 70% of the 1,228 SMB budget decision makers in the Forrester’s “Global IT budgets, priorities, and emerging technology tracking survey Q2 2010″ said upgrading disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities is likely to be a top technology priority over the next 12 months. Of 1,575 enterprise decision makers, more than 60% said DR/BC — second in the survey behind consolidating IT infrastructure.

So embrace the disruption because it’s making “enterprise-class DR available to companies of all sizes, and making it much faster, easier and less expensive.” And that’s a good thing….

Tags: cloud, disaster recovery, dowtime, DR, Remote Disaster Recovery, SMB, virtualization
Posted in Recovery Best Practices | 1 Comment »

VMworld and the Evolution of Virtualization

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

The recently concluded VMworld 2010 conference was one of the most talked about technology events this year. With almost 17,000 attendees representing 85 countries VMware has definitely come a long way, which is no surprise given the proliferation of virtualization in general. According to IDC, the year 2009 was a tipping point; more server applications were deployed on virtual infrastructure than on physical infrastructure. VMware’s CMO proudly announced during the general session that 97% of Fortune 1000 companies use VMware, and it’s estimated that more than 10 million VMs will be deployed this year pegging the growth rate at a whopping 28%.

VMware’s CEO laid out VMware’s vision saying that virtualization has started the evolution from being all about hardware efficiency to operating efficiency. IT-as- a-service is the new mantra to live by. Paul Maritz in some ways announced the obsolescence of the operating system in its current avatar – he stated that hypervisor layer has successfully replaced the operating system as orchestrator of the hardware resources.

The two major announcements made during the conference this year was around vCloud API and vCloud Director. The vCloud API is an interface for providing and consuming virtual resources in the cloud and vCloud Director helps manage the private cloud infrastructure. These announcement comes on the heels of the VMware’s acquisition of SpringSource and Zimbra, both of which enable application development and deployment in the cloud. vCloud API and vCloud Director will help further VMware’s vision of IT-as- a -service.

On the event floor itself, the energy was palpable. The interest around virtual desktops was phenomenal, while other areas garnering a very strong interest were Disaster Recovery in the cloud and storage virtualization. Overall I kept coming across the following themes on the show floor:

Public, private and hybrid Cloud
Virtual machine backup and recovery
Virtualization management
Storage virtualization
Desktop virtualization
VM consolidation
I/O virtualization

Apart from the frenzied activity on the exhibition floor, VMworld 2010 offered a number of breakout sessions, workshops and labs. There were 160 unique breakout sessions and 30 labs to choose from. Some of the sessions I personally found interesting were “SRM Futures Host based replication”,” VMware backup – benchmarked and best practices”, “VMware Storage vision”, “Desktop virtualization – the next big thing”. Though this does not come exactly as a surprise to me, during one of the snap polls, it was very interesting to learn that 80% of companies continue to backup virtual machines using the technology more suitable for physical machine backups. This gives a glimpse of the road ahead and how much potential there is in this market for any backup recovery vendor to tap.

VMworld 2010 conference ended with ‘Best of VMworld 2010’ awards and with the start of a countdown to the VMworld 2011 scheduled to be held in Las Vegas. I am already looking forward to the next year’s event to witness how the virtual world is evolving and to be a part of this wonderful movement .

So Las Vegas here I come …

Posted by Rachna Raina

Tags: backup and recovery, cloud computing, Cloud Storage, disaster recovery, virtualization, vmware, vmworld
Posted in Cloud Connected, Recovery Best Practices | No Comments »

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