Data dedupe: Challenges
We have already seen that data dedupe has found an entry-level acceptance among enterprises. However, there are still a few hiccups in its share, which will prevent its traction, in a mass scale, for some more time.

“The adoption levels are pretty low because people haven't started feeling the heat as of now. People are still trying to understand this technology. Cost is a concern factor and people are still not convinced about the kind of benefits it can bring. These could be the biggest tampers for this technology's adoption in India,” notes Munglani.

On the other hand, Chavan outlines four challenges, namely:

Insufficient data reduction: Whilst there is an expectation that the amount of storage will be reduced with dedupe solutions, the result in your particular environment will vary depending on the technology you choose and the type of data you are looking to deduplicate.

Performance bottlenecks: Finding and eliminating redundant data is a computationally intensive task and should be sized for the amount of data you have today and expect to grow. If sized incorrectly, what may look like a cheap solution with appliance-based offerings may turn out to be expensive when you need multiple boxes to do the job.

Increased complexity of management: Many deduplication solutions today behave as if the entire workflow revolves around their value.

Islands of deduplication: Proprietary solutions create vendor lock-in, combining limited performance with proprietary storage layouts. They make it nearly impossible to move data from a deduplication appliance to other storage. Dedupe technology should be such that it is compatible with all unstructured data residing on heterogeneous platforms and have integrated management to reduce the management overhead.

“Therefore, it is important that a holistic approach is taken, an understanding of where all duplication resides and quantifying how much of it is there and which areas should be attacked first and what savings this will yield,” notes Chavan. “Only after this, can a technology decision be made.”

Data dedupe: Not a magic bullet
Data dedupe is not another magic bullet that solves all your storage problems at one go. The savings depend on various other factors coupled with data dedupe.

“Those companies who have taken the time to understand this technology come to the realization that 'dedupe' is not a panacea or 'silver bullet' to solve all their storage problems,” adds Munglani. “The savings on dedupe varies from 15:1 to as much as 300:1.”

Data dedupe augments greater storage management strategy, when coupled with storage virtualization, block storage reclamation, implementation of prudent data archiving practices, and other innovative technologies such as thin provisioning etc.

SMBs not yet ready for data dedupe:
It has always been the case with newer technologies that initial demand always comes from large enterprises. Whereas, it is after much time that they filter down to the smaller ones, who then take their own sweet time to fall in line with others. Indian SMB market stands no different.

“Storage in itself hasn't found much traction into SMB market and has been relegated to the surface level. Similarly, data dedupe has also not found much traction into the SMB space. People have bigger issues to deal with and storage as such is not a priority for them today,” says Munglani.

However, on a positive note, Chavan adds that data deduplication would definitely be on the requirement list of a fast-growing SMB sector soon.

Disk or tape: Whose time to be obsolete?
This argument is neither a new one, nor will it find an answer anytime soon. With the entry of disks many expected tapes to recede into oblivion. However, it didn't happen and experts believe that tapes  would continue to be the base for some more time to come.

However, today with data dedupe, which also helps in the migration of tape to disk-based storage, will tape meet its end much before its time?

“Tape storage is more of a fixation of the mindset today because it gives me the emotional comfort,” Iyer says. “In some places, people still go for tape, because they want to vault it, as they want an outside copy. Whereas, the deduplication technology can actually replicate and also do disaster recovery for the deduplicate data.”

Chavan opines that when it comes to the costs do drive the end-user to disk-storage, the scenario is gradually changing as with organizations realizing the limitations of a disk-based solution.

However, Iyer likes to differ and says: “India has already made move towards disk from tape. We have quite a few customers in the country who are going for such solutions.”

Munglani beats the final nail saying, “Tape will not die as of now, but is dying a slow death. Maybe, after two-to-four years shipments of tape products will be very less.”