Dell Says 'We Also Do Dedupe'

As IT managers watch a bidding war take place over Data Domain, the storage vendor best known for its data deduplication technology, Dell wants to remind technology buyers that it also is a player in the storage market and has data reduction features that can help them reduce their data footprint and slow down the need to buy more capacity.

In a session with reporters today, Dell touted its "holistic approach" to data reduction that includes workshops, assessment and design services, and its ability to implement and manage such technologies. It also announced that its PowerVault DL2000 includes Simpana 8.0 software from partner CommVault that provides embedded block-level deduplication and improved management for virtualized environment.

Asked if Dell was trying to jump on the deduplication frenzy generated by the fight between NetApp and EMC for control of Data Domain, Brett Roscoe, senior manager of product marketing for enterprise storage at Dell, laughed and said the company had planned to make this announcement a long time.

"This is a point of view message," he said. "We're pushing a services-led approach to help customers understand where deduplication will benefit them the most and help them get the right technology for the job."

Dell says its research shows that most companies store too much data on expensive Tier 1 storage and that nearly half of all customer data files were more than 90 days old, taking up more than 35 percent of storage capacity. About 20 percent of the file data is duplicated. The result is too much spending on storage capacity and management, and a greater risk of recovery failure and compliance violations.

The company's recommendations are to implement tiered storage and move as much as possible from Tier 1 to Tier 3 storage, which could generate savings of around 50 percent, and to archive data, which could save around 25 percent. It also is pushing data deduplication, storage consolidation, and optimization of backup and restoration processes.

"The problem for most companies is the large data footprint and the long backup window. But every customer will have a slight variation on how things like deduplication can help them. We think dedupe will become part of software applications rather than appliances, but it is just one of the things in the toolset," Roscoe said.

One size or approach doesn't fit all, he said. IT departments need to understand where they are experience problems before they can decide whether source-based deduplication is the right approach or whether a target-based approach might work better. "The pain points can be different and the way you address them is different," Roscoe said.

Dell, of course, has a range of products to ease those pain points, and the DL2000 disk-based backup system is one the company is pushing for the small and mid-sized business market. It includes the CommVault software, which Dell also will sell as a standalone product. The storage system also offers Symantec software as an option. The appliance "doesn't just manage the backup and recovery environment, it also manages the disk environment and understands how to set up RAID and set up LUNs to take that burden away from the customer," he said.

Despite all the attention data deduplication has received recently, Roscoe said most small businesses have not implemented it and are still looking for more information. "That is why it is key to come out with professional services as more of them consider moving to disk-based backup. They are interested in faster backup times, faster restore times and keeping more data available," he said.

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