Data redundancy is a primary contributor to the explosive growth in data. Initially deduplication focused on eliminating data redundancy in specific cases like full backups, e-mail attachments, and VMware images. Over time, however, customers have noticed the pervasiveness of duplicated data.
Test and development data multiplies across an organization: replication, backup, and archiving create multiple data copies scattered across your enterprise, and sometimes users simply copy data to multiple locations for their own convenience.
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Studies estimate that multiple copies of data now require organizations to buy, use, and administer two- to 50-times more storage than they would actually need with deduplication. Given that impact on the bottom line, organizations are recognizing that, far from being a niche technology, deduplication needs to become an integrated and mandatory element in their overall IT strategy.
Candidates for deduplication
The best candidates for deduplication solutions are mid-size or enterprise customers experiencing issues with:
Features to look for in a deduplication solution
When evaluating deduplication solutions, IT decision-makers should look for the following essential features:
Challenges in Deploying a deduplication solution
Like disk-to-disk backup or server virtualization, deduplication should not be evaluated as an isolated product or feature. Customers must consider the broader implications of deduplication within the context of their entire data management and storage strategy. Common challenges in deploying a deduplication solution are related to performance, increased complexity of management, and proliferation of deduplicated data silos.
Performance
Finding and eliminating redundant data can be extremely expensive for an appliance-based deduplication solution. Without contextual knowledge of the data that it deduplicates, it faces significant challenges scaling to the size of most enterprises.
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