FalconStor VTL Heads to China

News that FalconStor has inked an OEM deal with Inspur, a Chinese integrator and solution provider, raises the question of whether FalconStor has changed its Single Instance Repository (SIR) de-duplication technology.

A few months back, some industry sources were looking askance at this portion of FalconStor's portfolio, since Sun and other FalconStor partners apparently passed on the company's de-duplication, even while continuing to embrace its VTL.

Unless I'm reading things wrong, Inspur, like Copan and Pillar, is taking on FalconStor's de-duplication. Does that mean FalconStor has changed it?

When we asked FalconStor recently whether SIR had changed, specifically when the company launched new VTLs in October, we received the following email answer from John Lallier, FalconStor VP of technology: "The SIR included in the VTL Storage Appliance is the most current release, so it is updated from the initial v1.0 release."

Cryptic, but there you have it.Meanwhile, FalconStor's been busy in China's growing IT market. Indeed, this alliance is only part of an ongoing project.

Put it all together, and it would appear that FalconStor is quietly reshaping its de-duplication story. The clincher would be adoption by holdouts EMC, IBM, or Sun. We'll be waiting to see.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.