Way to more with data dedupe

BANGALORE, INDIA: Network storage market sees no downturn. With data volumes doubling every 18 months and devices accessing them doubling every 2-1/2 years, the marketplace is abuzz with activities even amidst the recession.

And the latest buzz in the market is data deduplication, which grew from nowhere to a $1.2 billion worth market in just three years. Today, companies such as EMC, HP, Data Domain, Commvault, Quantum, Symantec, IBM and many more have set their strategies on data deduplication, eyeing this upcoming market.

Race for a share in the pie:

Only recently did we see two major acquisitions in the storage industry.

On one side, when HP took over Ibrix, on the other, we saw two large storage vendors, EMC and NetApp, lock horns for Data Domain, at the end of which EMC outbid NetApp for a whooping $2.4 billion!

So what made the giants to bid a war against each other and what is so hot about Data Domain?

As per reports, Data Domain is a pioneer in the development of data deduplication technology, and is by far the best-known vendor of the technology. So irrespective of the fact that both EMC and NetApp had in-house data deduplication solutions, they went for Data Domain because storage market is seeing a phase where digital information is growing like never before and growing is the demand for data deduplication solution.

There is also a take that acquisition of Data Domain overshadows the future of EMC's Quantum products (which has solutions similar to Data Domain). Ever so, sources from EMC repeatedly say this is not the case.

Venkatesh Iyer, head - India & SAARC, Backup, Recovery and Archival Solutions, EMC, says: “Data Domain acquisition is essentially for the requirement of in-line data deduplication technology, i.e., when the data travels from the back-up server to the target, it gets deduplicated; whereas, Quatum products are essentially at the target level. So this acquisition only further strengthens EMC's existing data deduplication strategy.”

No matter what, one trend that is emerging out very clearly is the demand for data deduplication.