Quantum Targets The Non-Deduping Mainstream

At least two-thirds of organizations are not deduping their data, says Quantum, a market opportunity the backup, recovery and archive specialist wants to address with two new dedupe appliances. Companies that do not dedupe their data are typically concerned about data deduplication costs, technology issues and flexibility. To address these issues, the DXi6701 (1 Gbit Ethernet) and DXi6702 (10 Gbit Ethernet) provide investment protection and a future-proof feature set, a new standard of value, and unique distributed deduplication with DXi Accent. DXi Accent benefits include reduced network traffic for both backup and disaster recovery, backup support over WANs as an alternative to a local appliance, and server-by-server enablement.

Quantum claims the system's 5.8-Tbyte-per-hour backup speed is twice the performance of its leading competitor, and works with any backup software with no extras required. Scaling from 8 Tbytes to 80 Tbytes, these devices offer the best price-performance ratio in the industry, and are half the acquisition cost of competitors (the price for the Dxi6701 is $58,000), says the company.

"What Quantum has done during the last 18 months or so is to really take a very close look at the overall foundation of the DXi software and identify areas to be streamlined and improved," says David A. Chapa, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. He attributes the price-performance advantage to two primary methods: one technical and other tactical.

"The technical method being the DXi 2.0 software, by streamlining how data is processed through memory, Quantum can achieve these high performance numbers without having to configure the appliance with the most expensive processor components on the market, hence bringing down the overall COGS of the box and, based on their testing, providing customers a price-performance advantage. The second method is very tactical, but it also is very much customer focused. Quantum is taking the CarMax "no-haggle" price approach by lowering list price to be more in line with what customers end up paying anyway for the unit. In the end, Quantum has made it that much easier to do business with by listening to its customers and channel partners."

The cost-performance numbers are real, states Russell Fellows, senior partner, Evaluator Group. "Evaluator Group evaluated the performance of an earlier generation of these systems, and witnessed the impressive price-performance gains made by Quantum over the past few years in this segment. Quantum is continuing to enhance their data protection and deduplication intelligence in software. These software improvements, coupled with more powerful hardware, allow Quantum to deliver significant price-performance levels. The hardware improvements in the new DXi systems include faster processors and interfaces, coupled with selective use of flash technology to enhance performance. Quantum's two-times performance advantage, coupled with a cost savings up to three times better than competitors, enables them to offer systems with significantly better price- performance ratios than many of their competitors can."

Fellows says as IT customers continue to demand ever higher levels of data recovery, IT departments will continue migrating their backups to disk-based products, maintaining the growth of this market segment for many years. "Currently, Quantum is well-positioned as a technology leader in this space. The new DXi systems will once again force competitors to improve their own price-performance levels in order to compete."

Taking time to put together technically sophisticated solutions is not unusual for Quantum, says Jeff Boles, senior analyst, Taneja Group. "They've taken a while in weaving it together, but that matches their historical norm--dealing with the crown jewels of their customers' data, they have a history of making sure every upgrade or release is more than rock-solid. What we're seeing in the latest generation of technology is no more than those technologies being woven together in better ways. Now, we are also seeing it delivered to market from a company used to optimizing the production of larger-scale tape systems, and we are seeing them demonstrate they can deliver more bang for the buck. I think the competition is just getting started for capacity optimization, and, yes, I'd say Quantum is now solidly running at the front of the pack."

Quantum has had significant experience developing purpose-built backup appliances, agrees IDC analyst Robert Amatruda. "They have much experience in designing these systems to have more efficient dedupe algorithms, better integration with disk drive technology and more efficient data movement capabilities." And, he adds, the improved price-performance puts Quantum in a much better competitive position in the purpose-built backup appliance market.

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