This week we welcomed Big Data storage company, SeaChange to our Albireo partner program. (SeaChange adds deduplication) SeaChange is a leader in media-centric cloud storage and will embed our Albireo Data Optimization Software into the SeaChange Universal MediaLibrary (UML), the only media storage that supports both real time play-to-air and high performance production.
This announcement turned heads in the storage industry as a commonly held belief is that video content and Big Data in general, do not dedupe very well. However, what many don’t realize, video editing workflows create multiple copies of footage. Just like other areas of data storage like databases, virtual server and VDI environments, analytics and such, multiple copies of data is a necessary part of work flow in a video editing environment. Albireo data deduplication is an ideal technology to reduce storage footprint and improve operational efficiency 5 – 10x for Big Data environments.
SeaChange is the first Big Data vendor to announce embedded deduplication technology in their media storage solution. Their tests have shown 5x capacity reduction with Albireo deduplication technology. That is enormous savings for a Big Data storage company! Congratulations to SeaChange! We look forward to working with you to create a sea change in storage efficiency and massive storage savings for your media customers.
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with a VP of Research who specializes in storage deduplication for a leading global technology research firm along with Tom Cook, Permabit CEO. We talked for a while about Permabit’s data optimization technologies and all the success Permabit is seeing with OEMs in the Flash, NAS and SAN enterprise storage markets. Then we briefed the analyst on the developments in our ready-to-run Albireo VDO solution for Linux-based storage OEMs. It was at this point that the conversation turned in a direction I hadn’t expected – I was surprised to hear the analyst suggest we should take Albireo to… Enterprise Backup Vendors?
“Don’t they already have dedupe,” asked Tom Cook?
“Well yes,” replied the analyst, “but every one of them, even the largest and most established players, has issues with performance, resource utilization and/or scalability when compared to the leading data protection appliance companies. From what you’ve said about your technology, I can see a fit in any of these product offerings. You’d improve any product out there in at least one key metric by an order of magnitude.”
An order of magnitude? That’s interesting, I thought. This analyst talks with IT organizations AND vendors on a daily basis and we’ve known each other for some time. I’ve come to trust his advice over the years. But it’s frankly difficult to check out the performance, resource utilization and scalability limitations of enterprise backup vendors without kicking off a massive research project. If you’re in that space, or even if you’re in another area where you think you’ve got dedupe covered, maybe you should be asking these types of questions?
- How fast is my solution with/without dedupe? If your ingest rates drop substantially due to dedupe – Permabit Albireo can help!
- How memory intensive is dedupe in your solution today? If you’re consuming more than 256 MB of memory to dedupe 10 TBs of unique data – Permabit Albireo can help!
- How scalable is my solution – can I dedupe across multi-system pools of storage or is my solution limited to addressing specific media silos? Can I scale beyond a single server? 2 servers? 16 servers? 128? If you can’t utilize commodity servers to scale to PBs of storage – Permabit Albireo can help!
To learn more about the capabilities of Permabit Albireo versus other deduplication technologies, check out this series of articles by Wayne Salpietro, Permabit Director of PMM and be sure to visit our newly redesigned website at www.permabit.com.
Keep a watch out for disruptive data optimized storage products in 2012.
Solutions built with Albireo and delivered by leading hardware, software and service providers are on the way. From SOHO/SMB appliances, to flash-based, high performance enterprise storage and cloud, Permabit Albireo software massively improves performance and efficiency of data creation, transmission and storage.
Explore the examples of Albireo deployments on our site, see how you can license our optimization products and let us know how we can help you to optimize your company’s products.
Flooding in Thailand is driving up prices and constricting availability of HDDs. A Gartner Note, “How to Cope with a Worldwide Hard-Disk Shortage in 2012” (G00227631) by Valdis Filks and Stanley Zaffos, December 6 2011, predicts:”HDD costs will increase by up to 20% in 2012″. Their number one recommendation to cope with the shortage is:
“Accelerate the deployment of storage efficiency improving technologies and procedures.”
Data growth isn’t going away. IDC says it will grow to over 3.5ZB in 2012, doubling the volume of 2011, and by 2020 35ZB will be created annually. I’ve always believed change (and even crisis) creates opportunity. In this case, the flood-gates are open for highly efficient (dedupe enabled) flash storage to make major market share gains. Disruptive flash storage with unprecedented performance, reliability and efficiency will erupt on the scene in 2012.
Yes it’s that time of year when all the IT professionals are sending their wish lists to the North Pole! It’s been a tough year for IT given the constant data growth and the never ending budget pressures. These folks are under siege! IT needs some help and it’s not going to come from the IT vendor reps who are looking for bigger commission checks and new Land Rovers in this year’s Christmas stockings.
So what IT toy is on the top of IT professional’s wish list? Deduplication! But not just any run of the mill dedupe it’s got to be dedupe that runs the table. We have seen the file level dedupe and even the dedupe that runs post process or dedupe with training wheels (that doesn’t scale) but those are IT toys from Christmas’ past. This year dedupe that can cut across the entire data center “everywhere” is what everyone wants. Dedupe that can be applied from the applications, OS’s, data bases, across all storage tiers including primary, SSD, backup, archive and even to the cloud, “Dedupe Everywhere.” Why? Because “dedupe everywhere” will address the key issues mentioned by reducing the data growth to manageable levels and reducing the amount of storage necessary to be acquired to meet anticipated data growth. “Dedupe Everywhere” will reduce budget pressure since storage is one of the largest IT budget expenditures by dropping those costs by 5- 35X and it will also enable Big Data to become an affordable reality with data/cost reductions and will become an example of IT delivering a business asset that can help drive revenue.
Dedupe Everywhere is the Christmas present that delivers benefits all year long by continuing to enable new technologies such as SSD become more cost effective (almost the same as spinning disk with dedupe applied) and improving reliability by reducing the data writes needed by 5-35X making SSD more reliable and affordable. Cloud Storage “dedupe everywhere” applies that 5-35X impact to the amount of data that will be sent to the cloud (reducing data bandwidth needs) and also reducing the effective costs of cloud storage because the data stored in the cloud will be reduced by 5-35X. Virtualized storage will yield the same 5-35X cost and efficiency reductions enabling IT professionals to manage more with less storage consumed and also increased management efficiency.
But don’t let the Grinch steal IT’s Christmas. The Grinch is determined on making sure that “Dedupe Everywhere” doesn’t land beneath your IT tree. After all, those big fat commission checks and Land Rovers have been dancing in their heads since August! Demand “Dedupe Everywhere” from your IT provider!! And have a Merry Christmas and a much Happier New Year with Dedupe Everywhere!
