DEEP DEDUPLICATION: THE HIGH OCTANE
WAY TO TURBO-CHARGE RESTORES
BY JOHAN JONGSMA, CTO, IASO
A DIVISION OF GFI SOFTWARE
DEEP DEDUPLICATION:
THE HIGH OCTANE WAY TO
TURBO-CHARGE RESTORES
When it comes to restoring data, speed is everything. The faster you get your
data back, the faster your company gets back to work. And when interacting with
customers, downtime can be a deal-breaker. Patience quickly wears thin.
There are many ways to speed up restores. Having
There are two problems that deduplication helps
a fast network helps, of course. But even the fastest
to solve. First, the amount of data businesses store
bandwidth can get bogged down by gigabytes or
is rapidly increasing. According to the Dell’Oro
terabytes of data running across it.
Group, enterprise storage is growing at 50% a year.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) pegs
that number at 60%. Either way you slice it, that is a
terabytes of data, you don’t necessarily have to
huge burden for IT administrators, as a lot of storage
restore all that data. Through deduplication, you
is required. And with many storage architectures, the
only need to back up, and thus restore, the data that
same data is repeatedly copied, even when most of
actually changes – which is a small fraction of the
the information barely changes.
original amount.
Let’s say your server disk crashes and loses a half
days’ worth of data. With deep deduplication, you
only have to restore the most recent information –
(assuming you have an aggressive backup schedule,
50%
ACCORDING
TO DELL’ORO
GROUP
in the first place). And with deduplication, you can
60%
ACCORDING
TO ENTERPRISE
STRATEGY
GROUP
have that aggressive backup schedule that protects
your most recent data because you are backing up
DEDUPLICATION TO THE RESCUE
far less data, – which takes far less time.
Not all deduplication technologies are created equal.
IASO offers what we call “deep deduplication.” This
works at the block level and stops the backup of data
already held in identical fashion.
WHAT IS DEDUPLICATION
So how does deduplication work? The
Our True Delta™ technology is what drives the deep
short answer is it doesn’t duplicate
deduplication process and significantly enhances
everything every time you do a new
our service. True Delta is the underlying technology
backup, but only duplicates what is new.
that only backs up new data. It doesn’t have to copy
This can dramatically reduce the amount
files that have been changed, but only the block level
of data moving over the pipe and being
changes in that file. In other words, you only backup
backed up on disk, tape, or more and
the blocks that have changed, a vastly smaller
more in the cloud.
amount of data. VMware® backups are also done
on the block level, reducing the time and resources
DEEP DEDUPLICATION: THE HIGH OCTANE WAY TO TURBO-CHARGE RESTORES
Fortunately, if you have those gigabytes and
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needed to back up your virtual machines. The exact
SHIFTING BACKUP ECONOMICS
same techniques are equally applied to Microsoft®
Deduplication changes the fundamental economics of
SQL Server® and Exchange, two applications most in
backup. Because you are sending a fraction of the full
need of backup and fast, foolproof restore.
data set, you make more efficient use of the storage
you have. On the on-premise side, you can hold off
The IASO system works by keeping a journal that
on buying new disks, arrays and all the software and
details exactly what is in the backup set. The
other gear to support them. You’ll also make better
unchanged data doesn’t need to be backed up again
use of your bandwidth, and you can defer network
as it is clearly shown to already be on the backup set.
upgrades to support growing data loads.
Moreover, IASO deep deduplication works both ways,
during backup and restore. That is why IASO turbo-
The news is even better for companies that use
charges your restores. When you need to restore
tape. By replacing a tape backup system with online
data, if the original files are on the original server
storage featuring deep deduplication, you’ll avoid
or disk, the restores are indeed just of the altered
the costs associated with the drives and media,
blocks. And as this data is restored, it is already
supporting software and fees for off-site storage.
compressed by some 70%, further speeding up the
More importantly, you’ll cut out a ton of IT man hours.
recovery process.
Deduplication is a great way to improve overall data
center or computing infrastructure efficiency.
Databases are a great case to illustrate this power.
Not everyone has experienced the benefits of
situation, you would only need to restore the
deduplication technology. According to Dave Russell,
previous day’s database state. Using True Delta’s
Gartner’s vice president of storage technologies and
deep deplication during restore, this all happens
strategy, deduplication is currently in scant use. He
in just a few minutes. You would hardly notice a
reports in “The Broken State of Backup” that 11% of
hiccup. True Delta “slicing” brings this deduplication
businesses surveyed have no deduplication in place,
to an even higher plane by applying three different
while 7% use it sometimes, and 9% use it for most or
technologies based on the circumstances, such as file
all backups.
size and file type. Based on this, True Delta can use a
static slicer, a dynamic slicer, or a complete slicer.
However, as more businesses become familiar
with deduplication and the benefits it provides, an
increase in use of this technology is likely to rise. In
BENEFITS OF DEDUPLICATION
fact, that rise is already under way. Russell’s reports
Deduplication has an array of benefits,
says more than half (53%) plan to use deduplicaiton
especially when you talk about deep
in the next year. And another 20% have plans for its
deduplication.
use further out.
-- You’ll have far shorter backup windows,
which mean backups can be done more
frequently. And by reducing the data
11%
7%
needed to be backed up, your entire
%
20
backup infrastructure is far less stressed.
bandwidth, administrative time, and
sometimes even software licensing.
Business use of
deduplication
9%
-- You can spend less on disk, network
-- The entire system is faster and more
reliable since it isn’t operating at its limit.
53%
State-of-the-art deduplicaiton during backup and
restore is an excellent way to ensure fast restore
11% doesn’t have it
53% plan to use next year
speeds. And this is achievable with GFI MAX Backup
7% use it sometimes
20% plan to use later on
and IASO’s Deep Deduplication, True Delta, and True
9% use it for most backups
Delta Slicing.
DEEP DEDUPLICATION: THE HIGH OCTANE WAY TO TURBO-CHARGE RESTORES
Let’s say you have a 100GB database. In a typical
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