User manual IBM TS7650 PROTECTIER DEDUPLICATION APPLIANCE OVERVIEW

[. . . ] Technology and innovation have also come to the rescue of the enterprise data center where virtually uncontrolled growth in storage requirements have forced the IT staff to supersize every storage array throughout the enterprise, centralized or distributed, in order to be able to handle the needs of the information generation. And make no mistake about it: the data center does need to be rescued!With increased costs for energy, and a limited amount available, the IT budget is being stretched to the limit in order to power and cool a data center containing storage arrays in every available nook and cranny. Floor space is another factor, as the IT staff tries to meet capacity requirements within the confines of an already bulging data center, staving off the impending doom, and millions of dollars in capital investment, for a new data center. [. . . ] Backups must be fast; recoveries even faster. In order to avoid interference with mission-critical applications, backups must be initiated and completed within a specified window of opportunity. If the incremental or full backup is not completed when the mission-critical applications need to come back on line, the data center runs the risk of violating their own policies and losing a critical checkpoint. 1 See the issue of Clipper Notes updated October 21, 2008, entitled Disk and Tape Square Off Again ­ Tape Remains King of the Hill with LTO-4, and available at http://www. clipper. com/research/TCG2008057. pdf. 3 See The Clipper Group Navigator dated August 2, 2007, entitled A Tape Solution for Every Size Enterprise ­ IBM Adds LTO-4 to Tape Family, available at http://www. clipper. com/research/TCG2007077. pdf. Copyright © 2009 by The Clipper Group, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without advance written permission. All rights reserved. February 25, 2009 The Clipper Group Navigator TM Page 3 One major factor that is having the biggest impact on the growth of enterprise storage is the backup of identical data segments on a nightly and weekly basis. Redundant data is rapidly becoming one of IT's biggest headaches, and biggest opportunities. It increases acquisition costs, wastes energy, and clogs the storage I/O. One way the IT staff can reduce the amount of data that needs to be saved, and therefore the length of time required for the backup, and the recovery, is by eliminating the backup of identical data through data deduplication. You only back up the same data once! The Advantages of Data Deduplication In order to reduce data proliferation, many enterprises are now deploying data deduplication software to eliminate redundant copies of the same data, reducing it to a single instance. In the deduplication process, duplicate copies of the same data are deleted, leaving only one instance to be stored. However, indexing of all data is still retained in the event that data needs to be recovered. Deduplication can significantly reduce the required storage capacity since only unique data is stored. For instance, if an email system containing 100 instances of the same 1MB attachment is being backed up, all 100 instances would be saved, requiring 100 MB of disk capacity. With data deduplication installed, only one instance of the attachment is actually stored. Each additional occurrence just references the one saved copy. In this case, a 100MB storage requirement would be reduced to just 1MB. Now imagine the amount of storage required if the data center is doing a full backup weekly. The 100MB storage requirement would quickly expand to 5, 200MBs!With data deduplication deployed, only 1MB of capacity would be consumed. This savings cannot be assumed for all storage environments. The IT staff needs to examine their data structure closely to determine if data deduplication can provide them the same type of savings. [. . . ] The Clipper Group, Inc. , reserves all rights regarding its trademarks and service marks. All other trademarks, etc. , belong to their respective owners. Disclosure Officers and/or employees of The Clipper Group may own as individuals, directly or indirectly, shares in one or more companies discussed in this bulletin. Company policy prohibits any officer or employee from holding more than one percent of the outstanding shares of any company covered by The Clipper Group. [. . . ]