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Backup deduplication: A complete guide
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Article
Compression, deduplication and encryption: What's the difference?
Learn the distinctions and similarities among data compression, dedupe and encryption as these data protection methods gain importance in everyday storage. Read Now
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Article
Inline deduplication vs. post-processing: Data dedupe best practices
Will inline or post-processing deduplication work better for your data protection platform? There are several products on the market that offer these capabilities. Read Now
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Article
How do compression and deduplication affect performance?
Data reduction methods, such as compression or deduplication, can have a positive effect on performance, but the significant CPU resources required could overshadow the benefits. Read Now
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Article
Is deduplication ratio an important backup consideration?
The deduplication ratio was once a point of vendor competition, but now this figure doesn’t carry the weight it used to. Learn why in this Expert Answer. Read Now
Editor's note
Backup deduplication, which reduces storage needs by eliminating redundant data, has moved from cutting-edge technology to mainstream staple. The data protection technology first showed up in 2003, aimed at organizations looking to move away from tape for the performance of disk-based backups. More than a decade later, dedupe is common in backup products, and can be a valuable instrument in data protection strategy.
But there are many elements to consider in picking the backup deduplication technology that fits best. How do zone-level and block-level deduplication compare? What about inline versus post-processing deduplication? What are the differences between deduplication and compression? How important are deduplication ratios?
Check out this comprehensive collection of backup deduplication content and learn about its pros and cons, different types and related terms.
1How deduplication is performed
There are many different ways that backup deduplication can be performed -- post-process vs. inline, block-level vs. zone-level and more. Learn about the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches.
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Article
Inline deduplication vs. post-processing: Data dedupe best practices
Will inline or post-processing deduplication work better for your data protection platform? There are several products on the market that offer these capabilities. Read Now
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Article
How does deduplication in cloud computing work and is it beneficial?
The deduplication process reduces the amount of data in a storage system, but dedupe in the cloud may be more valuable to the cloud provider than the customer. Read Now
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Article
Compression, deduplication and encryption: What's the difference?
Learn the distinctions and similarities among data compression, dedupe and encryption as these data protection methods gain importance in everyday storage. Read Now
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Article
Block-level deduplication vs. zone-level deduplication
Block-level deduplication is a popular form of the dedupe process, but it has its drawbacks. Discover why zone-level deduplication may be better for your storage environment. Read Now
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Article
Can your deduplication process be improved with semantic dedupe?
While semantic deduplication is a legacy technology, the global deduplication process can perform a similar job. Expert Brien Posey compares the two offerings. Read Now
2Deduplication's uses and benefits
Many organizations struggle with data growth. Deduplication is aimed at addressing this ongoing issue. This section explores some of the ways your organization can use backup deduplication.
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Inline deduplication fits well with hyper-converged IT
Of the two main types of deduplication, most HCI vendors choose inline over post-process because of the performance benefits and lower levels of total storage required. Read Now
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Deduplication common in virtual storage environments
Compression and deduplication are common data reduction methods used in virtual storage environments, but the technologies work at different storage levels. Read Now
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Deduplication in an all-flash environment
Data reduction methods such as deduplication and compression are taking the all-flash data center to the next level. Read Now
Which backup software is right for your business?
“Do I still need an enterprise-level backup software app? How can I prepare for the top challenges I may encounter when buying restore software? Which products should be on my radar?” You’ll find the answers to these queries and more, in this free, downloadable PDF.
3How vendors use deduplication
Backup vendors continue to find new ways to incorporate deduplication into their products. Explore some of the latest offerings in the market.
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Quest launches QoreStor for appliance-free dedupe
Quest strips the data deduplication software out of DR appliances, launching it as the independent QoreStor application, which supports any vendor's backup hardware. Read Now
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Article
Veritas 360 Data Management embraces cloud, dedupe, NoSQL
Veritas 360 platform upgrades -- including cloud deduplication for NetBackup -- dominate the opening day of the vendor's Veritas Vision 2017 user conference. Read Now
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Acronis Backup software adds ransomware protection, improved dedupe
Acronis enhanced its business-level backup product with active protection against ransomware that recognizes 'whitelist' and 'blacklist' ransomware sources. Read Now
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Article
IBM adds deduplication to Spectrum Virtualize, and Storwize arrays
IBM has added data deduplication to Spectrum Virtualize and array products that run it. It has also upgraded array analytics and the cloud version of Spectrum Virtualize Read Now
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Pure launches ObjectEngine cloud dedupe, plus inter-rack NVMe
Flash storage pioneer offers flash-to-flash-to-cloud ObjectEngine on-premise and in the cloud while boosting connectivity between datacentre racks with NVMe-over-fabrics Read Now
4Data deduplication challenges
Dedupe has changed the way backups are performed, but as with any technology, it can't solve every problem IT pros face. These articles take a look at some deduplication challenges.
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Article
How do compression and deduplication affect performance?
Data reduction methods, such as compression or deduplication, can have a positive effect on performance, but the significant CPU resources required could overshadow the benefits. Read Now
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Article
Is deduplication ratio an important backup consideration?
The deduplication ratio was once a point of vendor competition, but now this figure doesn’t carry the weight it used to. Learn why in this Expert Answer. Read Now
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Article
Should the data dedupe process ever be disabled by admins?
While it may seem that you should never switch off the deduplication process, there are two instances where that may be the best solution for your organization. Read Now
5A list of essential definitions
Learn some of the key terms regarding deduplication.
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Definition
data deduplication
Data deduplication -- often called intelligent compression or single-instance storage -- is a process that eliminates redundant copies of data and reduces storage overhead. Read Now
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Definition
inline deduplication
Inline deduplication is the removal of redundancies from data before or as it is being written to a backup device. Read Now
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Definition
global data deduplication
Global deduplication is a method of preventing redundant data when backing up data to multiple deduplication devices. Read Now
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Definition
data deduplication hardware
Data deduplication hardware is a storage product that eliminates redundant copies of data and retains one instance to be stored. Although these products are sold as appliances or disk libraries, they include software that performs the deduplication. Read Now
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Definition
data deduplication ratio
To calculate the deduplication ratio, divide the capacity of backed up data before duplicates are removed by the actual capacity used once the backup is complete. Read Now