Earlier this month, Dell announced enhancements to its DR seriesof deduplication appliances. Deduplication appliances continue to be a common method of improving one’s overall data protection infrastructure since they can typically be added to whatever backup/archive software or method that you already have, while near immediately reducing the storage consumed in secondary copies.
Check out my recent video on Deduplication Appliances that was released as one of four videos covering a few of the key insights from ESG’s recent Shift to Data Protection Appliances (DPA)research report.
The Dell DR deduplication is powered by the Ocarina technology that Dell acquired a few years ago and is now a family of storage appliances. So, what is notable about the Dell DR updates:
- Encryption for data within the appliance (“at rest”), complementing their existing “in-flight” encryption. The at-rest encryption is particularly laudable since it is software-based, instead of depending on self-encrypting drives; resulting in Dell DR customers being able to take advantage of the feature after a software update within the appliance.
- Scale enhancements, including support for 6TB drives, resulting in a new top end of 252TB for the appliance-plus-expansion-shelves and up to 25TB/hour in ingest (backup) speed.
- Integration enhancements, including VTL support via NDMP and iSCSI, including certified support for a broader range of backup/archive software
- Acceleration enhancements for Dell’s RapidNFS and RapidCIFS software-based accelerators, as one means for enabling software-based deduplication from the production sources, instead of within the target device.
You can also check out ESG Lab’s hands-on assessments of the Dell DR6000 and the Dell DR4100.
Now, Dell has announced enhancements to their DL series of backup appliances, powered by Dell’s AppAssure backup software. For context, check out my recent video on (turnkey) Backup Appliances, from the same DPA research mentioned above. With the announcement come two new DL series appliances:
- DL4300 provides a new higher-end backup appliance with up to 120TB of usable capacity, as well as enhanced performance for delivering enterprise-class backups using its AppAssure backup and replication software.
- DL series appliances now also gain enhanced VM recovery features, so that standby VMs can be powered up within seconds with the appliance, without waiting for traditional restoration of VM data to the original hypervisors
- DL1000 1TB complements the 2TB and 3TB variations of the DL1000, and is designed to provide small offices (or remote/branch offices) with snapshots and backups locally, before replicating data to other sites.
It’s been interesting to watch Dell truly metamorphosize from a server/storage company that resold other folks’ data protection tools into a genuine data protection portfolio-driven company that has built upon its Ocarina, AppAssure, and Quest acquisitions and is now telling a comprehensive story – with one of its core pillars being to help its customers “Protect” through both information security and data protection.
As the portfolio continues to come together, watching how these DR and DL platforms continue to evolve and innovate (in announcements like these) will be foretelling to the future of Dell as a complete provider of enterprise services and solutions. Congrats on the recent data protection evolutions and I personally look forward to watching things continue to come together and for the world to re-discover the new Dell.
[Originally blogged via ESG’s Technical Optimist.com]