Everyone sure wants to get into the deduplication game! Dell recently entered the market with the DR4000 which uses the Ocarina deduplication technology they purchased. Reading over the specs, this device looks like it is intended for small to medium business with a limited ability to scale out. They are touting OST integration (likely since they have a strong relationship with users of Backup Exec) as well as NAS support. You can read more from the horse’s mouth here (http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2012/01/11/dell-dr4000-demystifying-data-duplication-for-small-businesses.aspx) and some other information here (http://m.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/11/dell_storage_forum_london/) and here (http://m.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/24/dell_dr4000/).
So a couple of points to remember when choosing a data protection vendor and product. Who’s product is this? Ocarina’s deduplication technology was acquired last year. It appears they couldn’t/didn’t develop their own technology, so they went out and bought some software to clamp on top of their commodity storage. When EMC acquired Data Domain, it was integrated as a full division within the company. They brought in the engineers, the evangelists, and the executives. Data Domain flows through the blood of EMC and is a key part of the entire BRS portfolio. What is the real focus on data protection? Dell has sold tape, sold disk, and now realizes it should sell deduplication to keep up with the rest of the industry. They have aligned with multiple vendors to sell “powered by” solutions from CommVault and Symantec. The EMC BRS portfolio is powered by EMC. Years of research and development have gone into our enterprise backup product NetWorker. This software can manage the entire data protection landscape in a single pane of glass. Avamar is a leading deduplication solution that includes both unique RAIN protected hardware and patented software that not only reduces data stored on disk, but the amount of data moved across your network. And to top it all off, we have the industry leading purpose built backup appliance. IDC shows the EMC has more than 60% market share in this category. More people choose EMC…for good reason. What does the future hold for the product? Where will Dell go next? Likely to whatever the next hot technology or software is. Where will EMC go? Where we drive it. We will continue to push millions into research and development and will continue to stand in front of the data protection landscape as a leader.
If you haven’t talked to an EMC BRS team member, take a few minutes to reach out. Complete a free assessment and see just how much deduplication can help your data protection goals. Already have deduplication? Complete an assessment and see how EMC’s approach can improve the effectiveness of deduplication. Don’t settle for good enough…it’s your data were talking about here.
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