FalconStor Dives Into De-Dupe

FalconStor overhauled its VTL today, using a new version of the software to push its de-duplication message out to the masses.

"This is an opportunity for them to re-launch their data-de-dupe capabilities," says Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Heidi Biggar. "The first six months of this year will be important for de-dupe vendors -- Data Domain has had a lot of traction, and this shows that FalconStor is really zooming in on these enterprise environments."

The word "enterprise" is important. Where Data Domain has seen most traction is in the small to midrange business segment. Enterprises remain generally unharvested when it comes to de-duplication. And the race is definitely on to gain traction there.

FalconStor has had de-dupe in its arsenal for over a year now, although the vendor must now prove its technology in a market crowded with the likes of Data Domain, Sepaton, and Diligent. There were also questions about the vendor's first de-dupe iteration. Last year, for example, FalconStor partner Sun turned to Diligent for de-dupe despite OEM'ing the FalconStor VTL.

In an attempt to make its presence felt, FalconStor today expanded the Single Instance Repository (SIR), which handles data de-duplication. Previously, FalconStor's SIR consisted of two two-node clusters, although Version 5 of the vendor's VTL offers one four-node cluster in an attempt to share de-duplication across a wider area."We want to be able to have all four nodes sharing the same de-duplication space," says FalconStor vice president and co-founder Wayne Lam. "Therefore a unique block [of data] is guaranteed to be unique across all four nodes."

ESG's Biggar thinks that this is a shrewd move. "This is useful, it's showing scaleability," she says. "This is making sure that they are making advancements that are in line with what enterprise-class users need."

Although often described as taking a "post-processing" as opposed to "inline" approach to de-duplication, FalconStor actually claims to take a hybrid approach. Details are sketchy and esoteric, but analysts support FalconStor's claim to de-duplicate data in the midst of a backup. "It's almost as if they can get higher levels of de-dupe because of that approach," says IDC analyst Laura DuBois. "It allows them to get into higher-end enterprises and get higher throughput."

It remains to be seen whether this message will cut much ice with users. A recent survey by analyst firm Baird revealed that de-dupe lacks traction amongst large enterprises, although other analysts have questioned these findings.

"In a recent [ESG] survey, 15 percent of respondents said that they are doing some form of data de-dupe," says Heidi Biggar. "For an emerging technology, that is a tremendous level of adoption."With users under growing pressure to lock down their data, FalconStor has also made a number of security enhancements to its VTL software.

These include Virtual Tape Shredding, a software algorithm that is used to wipe each virtual tape clean after data is deleted. "It repurposes the disk that stored virtual tape data and securely erases it," explains Lam. "Even though you have deleted the data, it may still be on the disk if you do forensic science recovery." Lam adds that the algorithm "swabs" the disk according to Department of Defense standard 5220.22-M for data removal. "You would be surprised how many customers asked for this feature."

FalconStor has also added a feature called Secure Tape Export, which uses a 128-bit encryption algorithm to encrypt data on the VTL before it is written to physical tape. "We don't have to integrate another box to do encryption," says Lam, explaining that this removes the need to deploy a standalone box from a vendor such as Decru.

At least one user feels that these features could be critical. "In the current security environment, it's vital that data does not fall into the wrong hands," explains Bob Steinberg, systems administrator at Parsippany, N.J.-based AIU, which is a division of AIG. "Things like Virtual Tape Shredding give IT managers more confidence in the security of their data."

The exec, who is using an earlier version of FalconStor's VTL, explained that test data accounts for most of his 10 Tbytes, although even this will be subject to stringent security. "Things change very rapidly in the security area," says Steinberg, adding that he expects to roll-out VTL version 5 sometime within the next six months.In addition to security, FalconStor also extended its clustering capabilities today, linking the two separate four-node clusters that were offered on VTL version 4.5. "Now all eight nodes can be joined as a single cluster," explains Lam, adding that this makes the cluster easier to manage.

Other enhancements to VTL 5 include Tape Consolidation, which writes data from multiple virtual tapes to a single physical tape. "This is to reduce physical tape costs and also to reduce the time spent by IT personnel managing physical tapes," says Lam. "Users can reduce the amount of tape they have to send over to the likes of Iron Mountain."

Pricing for VTL 5, which is available now, starts at $53,000 with the software pre-packaged onto FalconStor E50 appliance, although pricing for the software-only version has not yet been revealed.

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