The benefits of data deduplication

Data growth in small and large companies alike continues to increase rapidly. According to IDC research, the amount of digital data created and stored worldwide has increased by 3,000% in just three years. In the current economic climate companies are under increasing pressure to cut storage costs, yet at the same time consolidate data. And regardless of these challenging requirements, IT departments must also be able to recover data quickly after a disaster to minimise business downtime.

You may not have heard of data deduplication technology, however your IT manager most likely will have. With the constant pressure on budgets and resources, data deduplication can help by cutting storage requirements by up to 90% by eliminating backup copies of redundant data. Any organisation, regardless of size or sector, can benefit from data deduplication through backup and recovery technology.

These are the drivers behind the hottest data-storage topic of 2009 – data deduplication. Enterprise companies have been quick to recognise its ability to reduce storage space requirements, improve storage systems performance and cut backup times. While this technology has traditionally been expensive, as the technology matures it is fast becoming more affordable and therefore accessible to all sectors and sizes. 

Data deduplication: What you need to know
Data deduplication is a data consolidation technique that searches for large blocks of redundant data (typically 4KB and larger), and stores them only once, regardless of how many copies there are. A 'pointer' references the original blocks of data, rather than storing the data all over again. Put simply data deduplication eliminates multiple copies of the same data, by looking for files or data blocks that are identical and storing them only once.

Less data, more benefits
The huge potential of data deduplication is that it can cut data storage by as much as 90%. It's a proven way for companies to store more data on less storage and as such it can lead to several noticeable business benefits:

• Saves network bandwidth as the amount of data being transferred over a network to a target location has the possibility to be reduced by up to 20 times.
• Lower overall storage costs as storage capacity is used more efficiently resulting in a potential reduction of storage systems purchased and managed.
• A greener environment as requirements for power, cooling and equipment are reduced, resulting in a smaller carbon footprint.
• Fast return on investment as storage capacity requirements are reduced
• Faster backup and increased data retention capabilities offering the ability to respond to legal and corporate compliance requirements without adding an extra burden on storage.

Deduplication for everyone
Data deduplication technology is increasingly a must-have when it comes to increasing storage capacity and reducing storage costs. Although traditionally it has been hardware based and reserved for large companies, as it reaches maturity it is now available as an affordable software-based solution. Any organisation, regardless of size or sector, can benefit from data deduplication through backup and recovery technology.

Downloads:
To learn more about data deduplication please download a few of the tools that we have developed to help you understand the topic in more detail:

Data Deduplication Whitepapers: Click here

IDC Viewpoints on Data Deduplication: Click here

Try Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10: Click here

Data Duplication Return on investment Calculators: Click here

About Acronis
Acronis, Inc. is the leading provider of storage management and disaster recovery software. Its patented disk imaging and management technology enables corporations and individuals to move, manage and maintain digital assets in physical and virtual environments. With Acronis' backup, recovery, server consolidation and virtualisation migration software, users protect their digital information, maintain business continuity and reduce downtime in computing environments. Acronis software is sold in more than 180 countries and available in 13 languages. For additional information, please visit www.acronis.eu.

Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10
A family of products for data backup, integrated system recovery and data deduplication across physical and virtual environments.

Based on Acronis' patented disk imaging and bare metal restore technologies, Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 is our next generation disaster recovery product family for physical and virtual environments, succeeding the Acronis® True Image product line. It is designed to provide centralised management of all backup and recovery activities to help organisations meet challenging Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs). Organisations of all sizes can simplify and automate backup and disaster recovery processes across Windows and Linux environments, including the ability to manage geographically distributed PCs, laptops, workstations, and servers, while scaling to protect thousands of machines. In addition, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 can deliver affordable deduplication capability that helps IT departments to make a better use of the storage infrastructure and save costs.