Tony's blog

Dedupe Predictions for 2009

Here are my predictions for 2009 relating specifically to data deduplication:

1. Disk-to-disk (D2D) backup with dedupe continues to proliferate, becoming much more mainstream in 2009. The perceived risk of implementing D2D backup with dedupe is all but gone and the value is glaringly clear. Additionally, the bad economy makes the value proposition that much more compelling. 

2. End users utilize dedupe as a requisite part of nearline and active storage archives. Moving dormant data off of Tier One storage needs to go up the priority list. The question is what do you move it to?  Standards-based NFS and CIFS cost effective storage with dedupe will be embraced by a number of customers. This should be considered and implemented by end user companies of all sizes. 

3. D2D backup and archiving will be a big Cloud Computing application. SMB customers with no secondary site can use Cloud Computing services for off-site disaster recovery. Additionally, low cost cloud storage can be used as an offsite archive. But you need to get the data there fast and cheap and dedupe can enable this to happen.

4. Power, cooling and floor space will be tied more closely with green initiatives and will move up the list of priorities. Yes, energy costs have come down, but the market is so volatile we must plan for more spikes. Additionally, with Obama as President of the US - an increase in global consciousness around Green should occur. Dedupe is a no-brainer way to reduce power, cooling and floor space consumption and make the data center greener. You can't beat saving money while also being green.  Turns out it can be easy being green ;)

 

Discussion with Michael Passe

I met with Michael Passe - storage architect for Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He has been with them for more than 11 years. He is using the Data Domain DD580 and DD690 solutions. Michael's role is to provide the storage strategy going forward for Beth Israel, including new platforms, products and technologies. Here are some highlights from our discussion:

"Mainly we were having a lot of problems with the management overhead of tape. Tape is a very mechanical construct with tapes getting stuck in drives. It made sense to get something more automated and RAID protected. It was fairly easy for us to figure out that tapes needed to go."

"Data Domain was the very early leader in this space. We have a long standing relationship with EMC, so we took careful consideration to what they had to offer at the time. The big thing for us is that we didn't believe in the VTL paradigm. This NAS idea of using standard-based protocols made a lot of sense to us."

"The real value of Data Domain is the iterative nature of backup - you make multiple backups in a week or a month and depending on your retention, that's where you build up to get to their claim of 20 to 1, which we are pretty close to. Both of our Data Domain clusters are receiving about 18, 19 to 1 on average day over day. Right now our Exchange environment is seeing 10 to 1. Other applications are seeing anywhere from 40 to 1 for Oracle and Sequel depending on how they are backed up."

Michael and I also discussed his challenges for 2009 and their emphasis going forward is to really focus on optimization. One of their goals is to start using Data Domain as an archive tier - moving infrequently accessed data from primary storage to Data Domain and getting further value from deduping. 

The trend I see is that a large number of IT professionals have and continue to embrace disk-to-disk backup with data dedupe - which is being perceived as a 'no-brainer" to an increasingly wider population. The next step is to leverage that same technology for greater optimization for online storage - an archive tier. Certainly a number of very large organizations have massive archive tiers but this now is being adopted or considered as an important project in companies of all sizes. This is further evidence that data center optimization needs to be a top priority - especially in 2009. 

Data Dedupe In A Down Economy

It is important to be hyper-focused on the economy and the prudent thing for IT professionals is to prioritize on investing in solutions that provide a real impact on reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Sounds like a no-brainer, but too often we are distracted by dealing with the status quo - conducting business as usual - which is fine when there is no crisis to face. However, the entire world is facing an economic crisis - like the falling of dominoes - and we are far from the final domino's descent. 

When making IT decisions for 2009, data dedupe should be at the top of the list because of the no-brainer value proposition - for disk-to-disk backup AND online archives. Data dedupe enables you to effectively put more data on physical disk drives with 10-to-1, 20-to-1 ratios and beyond. Not only do you save on reducing cost per GB but it also leads to lower power and cooling consumption. Data dedupe can have a major impact on operational efficiencies. It significantly lowers WAN bandwidth requirements and less bandwidth consumed means lower recurring communication costs. The cost of recovery goes way down because you don't have to go on a wild tape chase tracking down the files or database records that have been spread across multiple tapes due to interleaving or sitting in a cardboard box at Iron Mountain. 

The challenge we face in this economy is the uncertainty of the future - businesses cannot predict what will happen and often times this paralyzes us from making decisions. However, no action is indeed an action and probably among the worst we can take, especially in a crisis.