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Deduplicating Replication - Quantum: Page 2 of 2

Quantum's deduplication method is called adaptive inline deduplication. This means that they will automatically adjust between inline deduplication and post-process deduplication as needed. Basically, if the system thinks it is getting too throttled down by the deduplication work, it will shift into a post process mode for as long as needed. If needed, the post-process deduplication can be forced by enabling a backup window in order to defer the deduplication process - it's called the deferred m
George Crump
January 19, 2010

Another interesting wrinkle is Quantum's ability to snapshot the remote replicated volume, allowing for multiple recovery points from the replicated data. They can store multiple snapshots of the replicated data independent of the deduplication method.

Quantum allows for ten versions or points in time. They don't take any measurable extra space since they are really only namespace snapshots. At any point, the backup administrator (from the GUI) could have Monday's replication, Tuesday's replication, Wednesday's replication and rollback to whichever version they wanted. This would be ideal in the event of a corruption or virus sneaking into a data set and then invalidating that day's backup.

Finally, support of Symantec's OpenStorage Technology (OST) for NetBackup (NBU) has also been important during these discussions, and Quantum has good support of OST at this point. Quantum uses OST to both manage replication jobs as well as providing and integrating path to tape. This provides NBU the ability to manage retention policies on two backup copies of the same data set with the data movement being supported by the Quantum system. While Quantum does lack the ability to support OST's capability as a high end transfer protocol across IP networks, they do see adding this support as a high priority and would expect that support sometime this year.

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