Dell PowerVault DL2200 - Manual (Page 2)

Executive Summary
Introduction
Customers of all sizes and needs are seeking new ways to tackle their data protection challenges. While the
challenges of data growth are not new, the pace of growth has become more rapid, the location of data more
dispersed, and linkages between data sets more complex. Data deduplication offers companies the opportunity to
dramatically reduce the amount of storage required for backups and to more efficiently centralize backup data from
multiple sites for assured disaster recovery. The PowerVault DL Backup to Disk Appliance powered by Symantec
Backup Exec 2010 now includes integrated deduplication capabilities that can help with the task of managing these
data protection challenges. Deduplication capabilities are available when customers purchase the Deduplication
Option.
What is Deduplication?
What is deduplication? At the core, deduplication is a process that breaks down files and data into “segments” and
uses a tracking database to ensure the Media Server only stores a single copy of that segment across all client
backup data stored to that media server. For subsequent backups of any client, the tracking database knows what
segments have been protected and only transfers and stores the segments that are new or unique – file segments
that are not currently stored by that Media Server. For example, if five different client systems are backing up data
to a PowerVault DL Backup to Disk Appliance and a file segment is found that exists on all five of those client
systems, only a single copy of the segment will actually be stored by the PowerVault DL Backup to Disk Appliance.
This tracking database ensures that these segments are kept until any existing disk-based backup no longer
references them. Because only a fraction of the original data is eligible to be stored by the PowerVault DL Backup to
Disk Appliance, this leads to significant reduction in disk space needed for backups.
Backup Exec’s deduplication technology will deduplicate data across all servers that are being protected by the
PowerVault DL Backup to Disk Appliance. The benefit of this methodology is that all of the deduplication segment
information mentioned above is shared with all other backups configured to use deduplication for a specific
PowerVault DL Backup to Disk Appliance. For example, if two Windows 2008 R2 servers are protected using either
Client or Media Server deduplication, only deduplication segments that are unique to either of those servers will be
stored. This helps significantly reduce backup disk utilization across all local and remote servers protected with
deduplication.
Regardless of the methodology used for deduplication – Client or Media Server – the end result is the same: storage
is optimized by only storing unique parts of a particular file or data stream, and using some form of a database to
associate segments to each other and to the machines where they were backed up from.
With the Backup Exec 2010 Deduplication Option, Administrators have the ability to choose when and where
deduplication takes place. Administrators can mix and match deduplication types to fit their unique needs; for