Demystifying Dell's DeDupe Strategy
One of the last sessions of the Dell Storage Forum was a presentation by Mike Davis on the Dell Deduplication Strategy. Davis, a former Ocarina employee, provided some insight on not only how Dell's technology works he also gave a reasonable roadmap stating where and when Dell is implementing the technology.
The technical part is beyond the scope of a blog but essentially the technology has several parts, the first is a delayering technology that looks "inside" of compound files to find objects like text, graphics and media. For example a PDF file can contain all of these components and the Dell technology has the intelligence to optimize each data type differently. Ocarina was a client of Storage Switzerland's prior to Dell's acquisition so see the link panel on the right for a complete list of the articles we wrote on the technology. The other parts of Dell's Deduplication hinge to a degree on the delayer step and are object aware, again applying the right data optimization method to the right data set.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
George Crump, Senior Analyst
Dell is a client of Storage Switzerland
The interesting part to me is what Dell is going to do with this technology. If it executes correctly, it single handedly may bring Dell the most significant competitive advantage it has ever had. This advantage is not only from a storage perspective but all the way through the entire IT stack. Dell potentially can optimize data from the client through the server to the storage and across the WAN to either a DR site or a cloud service without re-inflating data. In a competitive IT environment this could be the item that tilts the scales in Dell’s favor when a customer is trying to make a purchase decision. The Dell solution would save them bandwidth and capacity everywhere else down the line.
While the other systems providers can deliver deduplication on individual silos, and in theory they could somehow move the technology horizontally, most are not presenting this possibility publicly with target dates for delivery.
This is a big risk area for Dell's competitors. The pressure will be on delivering integrated, end to end dedupe that does not require reinflation. They are going to need to either speed up internal development or buy a technology that can work across platforms.
Dell Storage Forum Note
Additional Dell Forum Notes
