Lotsa people use and love data de-duplication (to hyphen or not – that is the question) technology for backup and archiving, but it looks like this tech is about to bust out for primary, live, real, mainstream, what-you-are-using-to-store-your-stuff storage. Big news!
First up was the company now officially called NetApp, which officially blessed the use of their advanced single instance storage (A-SIS) de-dupe tech for primary storage use as of now. They added block-based de-dupe way back when, and even said people could use it for primary storage, but it doesn’t look like that happened much. So the new release of OnTap 7G includes performance tweaks and more powerful blessing from the company, making this the first play for primary storage de-dupe that I know of. Some have been (predictably) skeptical of Network Appliance NetApp’s A-SIS technology, but others appreciate the results…
Next is the smarties over at Hifn, who make super (de)duper storage controller hardware that often finds its way into OEM products. On Monday, the company announced availability of a card that can handle de-duplication, compression, and encryption, though not all three at once and only at 250 megabyte per second speed. And it looks like a partnership with Freescale Semiconductor will give a big performance boost later in the year, enabling gigabyte per second throughput and all three functions at once. This could really be something, with upstart OEMs launching de-duping storage arrays for little bucks before Storage Decisions comes to San Francisco!
Image by Gila Brand, used according to Creative Commons 2.5 license