HP: Dedupe for Everyone

HP has debuted two new disk-based backup systems, one for small organizations and another for midsized to larger enterprises. It features specific deduplication technologies aimed at reducing SMB costs and boosting disk utilization for big organizations.

The HP StorageWorks D2D 2500 and 4000 Backup Systems and the HP StorageWorks Virtual Library Systems promise to cut storage administrative work and fleet floor space needs, as well as energy requirements, by scouring data archives to remove redundant information and shrink files.

“All enterprises face tremendous data growth as well as a lack of ability to scale storage but how to do that requires a unique approach,” David Rogers, a product marketing manager for HP StorageWorks, told InternetNews.com. “You can’t treat every storage environment as one homogenous environment.”

In offering up specific tools for various size enterprises, HP said it’s providing value to its storage and backup technology options, and eliminating pain points that companies face in storage efforts.

HP clearly has a goal to grab more market share in the SMB storage marketplace.

Analyst firm RW Baird expects the optimized disk-to-disk storage market to grow from $250 million this year to about $1 billion by 2009, thanks to spiking demand for high data availability, and the enterprise desire to replace tape.

Rogers said HP’s SMB offering provides “dynamic” technology that is more affordable than competing systems, such a Data Domain’s products, in addition to being easier to deploy and manage. The technology uses an inline approach, which means deduplication occurs during the backup process and doesn’t require additional disks. Storage makers are keen to leverage the technology and market opportunities.

In May Data Domain (NASDAQ: DDUP) mixed up
its own product strategy in pushing out a high-end deduplication appliance, rather than staying focused on its mid-tier market segment.

“The pain point with storage with SMBs is the budget,” explained Rogers. Products aimed at this segment feature a simple user interface.

HP’s take: leveraging disk-based backup for remote locations enterprises can cut overhead by consolidating tape hardware into a single site, resulting in less frequent data migration from disk to tape.

The tool provides greater scalability of capacity while maintaining higher performance, HP claimed. The offline dedupe process happens post processing, which means no impact on performance.

Scalability is easy as deduplication occurs as more storage nodes are added given its single backup target for multiple servers. Competing technology, such as EMC products, does not have both scalability and performance, said Rogers.

At its annual showcase last month, EMC (NYSE: EMC) announced several new dedupe offerings, including a disk library and the latest version of EMC Avamar backup, a recovery and de-duplication software solution.

In addition to the new dedupe solutions, HP has also rolled out the HP StorageWorks RDX Removable Disk Backup Systems for the very small enterprise requiring a simple backup approach.

“Having something like a removable hard drive backup is better than not backing up at all,” said Rogers, adding that small shops and remote locations likely find that burning data to DVDs and CDs as very cumbersome and slow. The backup drive is priced at $299.

Pricing for HP StorageWorks D2D 2500 and 4000 systems starts at $6,499. The “accelerated” technology is on a license basis related to physical storage capacity.