Symantec de-duplication strategy targets data growth, virtual machines

Symantec is expanding its de-duplication capabilities across several backup products slated to be released this year and in 2010, the company announced Tuesday.

Symantec aims to bring de-duplication technology closer to information sources; reduce complexity with centralized management tools that can handle both Symantec and partner technologies; and reduce the storage footprint associated with virtual servers.

De-duplication is growing in importance as IT shops try to minimize ever-expanding storage needs. That's one reason EMC and NetApp have each submitted bids to purchase de-duplication specialist Data Domain.

"The big push here is around data growth," says Mathew Lodge, Symantec's senior director of product marketing. "Even during a recession, data growth is still huge."

Virtualization is one major driver of storage growth, but de-duplication can reduce capacity needs by making virtual machines (VM) as small as possible, for example by storing only one copy of an operating system, Lodge says

"In a virtual environment you end up with multiple copies of virtual machine images," he says. "Now you have to store and back up all of those, which leads to a huge amount of redundancy."

Symantec already offers de-duplication in its NetBackup and Enterprise Vault products, which bring de-dupe to archiving, backup and remote office backup. NetBackup offers management of de-duplicated storage from third-party vendors such as Data Domain, Quantum, FalconStor and EMC.

Going forward, Symantec says it will offer better compression of virtual machine (VM) images in NetBackup PureDisk 6.6, due out in September. Symantec has also added support for Microsoft Hyper-V to the current version of NetBackup.Symantec is targeting small- and midsize businesses (SMB) with Backup Exec 2010, which will integrate de-duplication with backup clients and the BackupExec media server, and be able to manage third-party de-dupe appliances. The SMB product is scheduled for release at year-end.

At the beginning of 2010, Symantec plans to release the enterprise-class NetBackup 7 with enhanced de-dupe capabilities, including support for client and media servers.

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