NEC HYDRAstor Keeps Footprint of Deduplication Appliances to a Minimum; Part 2 of 2

In part one of this two-part series, NEC's Director of Business Development, Dr. Christian Toelg, answered some specific technical questions about how Accelerator Nodes and Storage Nodes differ from one another. This second part takes a look at what specific advantages NEC's HYDRAstore grid storage architecture has over siloed, two controller storage system architectures when performing deduplication.

The benefits that either a grid storage or a siloed, two controller storage system will provide in terms of deduplication will hinge on the amount of data that a company plans to store on the system. When there is only a small amount of data (under 10 TB), Dr. Toelg says there is probably not a big difference in the deduplication benefits that a company will realize when using one approach over another. In these circumstances, the other benefits of using a grid storage architecture, such as its ease of upgradeability and "future proofing" against technology obsolescence, become the main drivers for its adoption.

It is in enterprises that need to store tens, hundreds or even thousands of terabytes of data that the drawbacks of a siloed, two controller architectures become more apparent. These architectures force enterprises to deploy multiple appliances that create data silos. Multiple appliances negate benefits of deduplication since the second, third and future appliances store similar data as previous appliances and do not deduplicate across one another. "As you add more appliances, the effective deduplication rate drops from 18:1 - 20:1 to 8:1 - 9:1 which thereby cuts your total effective deduplication capacity," says Dr. Toelg.

NEC HYDRAstor's grid storage architecture can deliver a higher deduplication ratio since its Storage Nodes create one logical pool of storage capacity and globally deduplicate data across that entire pool. The actual deduplication ratio any enterprise gets will vary according to how long data is retained, the data or application type since backups will likely get better dedupe ratios than archive data, the type of backups performed (full, incremental, or differential) and the uniqueness of the data stored on the appliance. However, the odds of achieving higher deduplication ratios are improved using HYDRAstor since companies can store all data in one logical pool.

The grid storage architecture also gives enterprises a couple of other advantages. Since all Accelerator Nodes can access data on any Storage Nodes, companies that plan to continue their use of tape can dedicate certain Accelerator Nodes to transfer data from disk to tape. This configuration prevents the performance overhead that data migrations incur from overlapping and impacting production backups and restores. Companies that run backups and restores 24x7 are the most apt to want to take advantage of this option.

The other notable advantage that a grid storage architecture provides is that it keeps the footprint of the system to a minimum. Since HYDRAstor can scale Accelerator Nodes and Storage Nodes independently, enterprises only need to bring in as many nodes as they need and upgrade or add either capacity or performance at any time. This flexibility minimizes power consumption, data center floor space and the cost of HYDRAstor since companies only need to purchase as many Accelerator or Storage Nodes as they need, when they need them. HYDRAstor's global deduplication feature further contributes to keeping the hardware footprint to a minimum, by improving the overall deduplication ratio and reducing the number of nodes required to hold and serve the data.

NEC HYDRAstor's grid storage architecture simplifies deduplication while maximizing its benefits. Companies can start with the HYDRAstor in configurations that match their initial requirements. They can then scale it according to how their environment evolves without sacrificing higher deduplication ratios or ease of management. HYDRAstor's grid storage architecture sets the stage for companies to confidently deduplicate their data while avoiding the problems that siloed, two-controller architectures introduce.