Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Deduplication Backup Software - Avamar: Page 2 of 2

When all the net new backup data has been transferred to the Data Store, replication can begin. While backup and replication are sequential processes, it is important to note that the overall backup window itself should shrink, so in theory the replication step should start fairly quickly. In most cases, total time to have data at the DR site should be comparable to the concurrent backup/replication processes possible on the leading target deduplication storage solutions. 

As I said earlier, the VMware use case is fertile ground for Avamar and its approach to deduplication. EMC has put considerable focus on advancing the product specifically for this environment. Avamar can provide either guest or image backups of VMware environments. The reason Avamar is such a good fit for VMware is because the way that it approaches deduplication solves some of the unique backup challenges that virtualization and consolidation can bring. In particular, the problem of too much data flowing through shared physical resources on ESX hosts. Avamar's dedupe cuts this data flow down to size and speeds up the backup. This allows for further consolidation and possibly a better ROI. Avamar now supports the VMware vStorage API for Data Protection and the new capabilities that it brings, as well as integration with VMware vCenter Server for more centralized management.

Being a veteran of the dedupe wars, Avamar has survived by maturing their software and is now prospering by jumping on key market opportunities that accentuate their capabilities like remote office backup (low bandwidth),VMware backups (high levels of duplicate data), NAS backup and most recently, Desktops & Laptops.

Disclosure: EMC's Backup Recovery Systems Division has engaged and is presently engaged in projects with Storage Switzerland where George Crump's is the lead analyst.