FalconStor Expands De-Dupe Capabilities With File Interface

FalconStor Software Inc. (Nasdaq: FALC), a leading provider of virtual tape libraries (VTLs), today announced a new file interface data de-duplication system, expanding options for customers seeking to back up data to disk.

The company said the file interface de-duplication system accepts data from standard network and data backup systems and includes CIFS and NFS file interface for block-level de-duplication, file-level access to the de-dupe repository, optimization for third-party backup software, and many-to-one replication capabilities for global de-duplication. It is available as a virtual appliance on several server virtualization platforms.

"This lets users access a file directly, which makes it easier to restore a file. The advantage for us is we have a central de-duplication repository that will accept replication jobs from multiple sites and verify that the data is unique before we replicate," said Fadi Albatal, FalconStor director of marketing, in an interview. The product is now in testing and will be available early next year with a list price of $13,000. The list price for a virtual appliance without replication starts at $5,000, plus $2,000 for adding replication.

The technology's ability to de-dupe data between remote sites and a central repository system can help companies reduce disk storage, accelerate backup processes, and shorten recovery times, the company said.

Eric Burgener, a senior analyst at Taneja Group , said in a statement that FalconStor is entering a new market with its disk-to-disk backup software, namely NAS-based disk-to-disk backup. "This promises to shake things up for existing NAS D2D vendors and extends the benefits of FalconStor's highly scalable deduplication technology to a new customer base that values many of the same features that made FalconStor the industry leader in the VTL arena," he said.The company also added support for 10-Gbyte/s iSCSI and 8-Gbyte/s Fibre Channel connectivity. This will let FalconStor VTL 5.1 systems scale up to 1.5 Gbytes/sec per node, with up to 8 nodes per each single logical deployment of VTL, it said. That will increase FalconStor VTL's backup capability to 43 terabytes per hour. It also said it has added greater integration with Veritas NetBackup OpenStorage from Symantec on various operating systems, real-time performance statistics, tape caching with de-duplication, enhanced repository management and replication, and additional library and tape-drive emulation.

FalconStor's technology is used by several other vendors in their storage systems. Albatal downplayed the announcement last month from Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL) that it is going to work with EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), a FalconStor partner, and Quantum Corp. (NYSE: QTM) to develop a common architecture for data de-duplication that will work across most of Dell's storage platforms. Dell said it expects to begin shipping systems using the technology early next year.

Dell already offers a variety of data de-duplication technology from its partners on several storage systems. However, the company said plans to offer a target-based system that works with its PowerVault, EqualLogic, and Dell/EMC product lines, and helps to make backup and disaster recovery easier and faster. "Data de-duplication is far from being an open standard," Brett Roscoe, a senior manager for storage at Dell, told Byte and Switch. "We are seeking to provide a common standardized approach that makes it easy to use for our customers. We want a common stack, especially for replication, that can handle site-to-site, or hub-and-spoke with regional branch offices and data centers. We want compatibility in replication."

Albatal noted that his company continues to have a strong relationship with EMC and that FalconStor doesn't have a direct relationship with Dell. "We really don't have an insight on the details of the deal between EMC and Dell," he said. "But don't think it will affect our bottom line."