Results tagged “dedupe”

I recently chatted with Analytico's Tom Trainer about his new GigaOM Pro report, "The Future of Data Center Storage" (subscription required) and wrote about some of the insights I gleaned for Earth2Tech (thanks Katie!).

I was encouraged to find out that storage vendors like IBM and EMC aren't just pursuing green IT strategies for their own operations and manufacturing, they're also pushing products that perform more efficiently and help enterprises derive more value from the storage they already own.

Why is it important? Cloud computing and ballooning stores of data in server-rich environments will soon tax power grids. Many companies are already bumping their heads on their data center's power ceiling. Simply throwing more storage at the problem is hardly a solution.

Two of the technologies that can help are data de-duplication (dedupe) and thin provisioning.  How? My Earth2Tech article explains, but essentially it boils down to a popular mantra that's bandied about during these gloomy economic times: "Do more with less."

Photo Credit: Flickr/Stuart Bryant

Tips for an effective data deduplication implementation - SearchStorage.com

For example, one significant argument is whether inline deduplication is more efficient than post-processing dedupe. While dedupe requires processing, which takes time and resources, the issue is where to spend the time: at the start of the backup process or the end; and which CPU you want to absorb the processing overhead.

Climate Savers power management seminar transcript now online - GreenTech Pastures - ZDNet Blogs

Energy costs account for about 10 percent of a typical IT budget. For some more color, I just got off a call where it was suggested to me that energy accounts for about 30 percent of an organization's operational costs.

Cisco Plays Both Sides of the Virtual Coin - Virtualization Review

It was code-named "California" and is expected to link computing, network, storage, access and virtualization capabilities together into one cohesive system. Now known as the Unified Computing System (UCS), the new platform from Cisco Systems Inc. has moved the company beyond pure-play networking into the server space with virtualization as the defining feature.

Start-up Hexagram 49 has unveiled an engine dubbed RethinkDB. The company says it's optimized for SSDs, claiming it can deliver performance ten times faster than existing databases.

Dell has officially launched a data deduplication site and a cursory glance reveals an intro to the technology, an assortment of whitepapers, and of course, a healthy spotlight on the IT vendor's partnership with the dedupe mavens at CommVault.

Here's a blog post by Greg White explaining Dell's approach to the capacity-sparing technology. If you're a Dell shop it's worth a look

[via Twitter @dell_storage]

One way to save money on an off-site backup infrastructure, plus the associated energy and management costs, is to pay a subscription fee to a firm that has already gone and built its share of geographically distributed datacenters. In Verizon's case, they have datacenters in 22 countries.

Verizon Business today announced an expansion of its Verizon Remote Backup and Restore software as a service (SaaS) offering to now include PCs ( previously only available for servers). Although not expressly mentioned in today's announcement, the telecom's business services unit also saves energy on its end. This is accomplished by employing data deduplication, which in turn prevents overprovisioning by eliminating redundant data and keeping otherwise underused capacity powered.

According to Verizon, the service requires that a low-resource agent that "supports a wide range of commonly used computing platforms" is installed onto a PC or Server. Administrators manage the setup on a Web-based dashboard and customers only pay for the storage they use.

Is your data safe? The company promises that backups will reside in datacenters that "feature 24 x 7 security protection, redundant and uninterruptible power supplies, as well as built-in fire suppression and environmental controls to help maintain data availability."

Verizon Remote Backup and Restore for PC and Server is available in the U.S. and Europe with Asia-Pacific to join in later this year.

Considering that Verizon already subscribes to a green datacenter mentality, there are worse, less energy efficient places to keep your data...