Data de-duplication

data de duplication 1

Many organizations these days are using data de-duplication, which is actually an uncomplicated conception with very smart technology following it. Although, there are quite a lot of options for carrying out of deduplication, you need to look at your peculiar data needs to check whether data deduplication can assist you or not.

In order to know more about what deduplication is all about, let’s have a look on some of the common questions and their answers regarding data deduplication:

What is data deduplication?

In simple words, data deduplication is a system that eliminates the need to store redundant data. Only a particular example of duplicate information is kept back whereas the duplicate instances are subbed with pointers to this solo copy under deduplication process. However, in order to access all the data transparently, a comprehensive index is still maintained.

How Data deduplication is beneficial for businesses?

Data deduplication possesses serious business credibility in a number of ways:

  • It helps businesses by creating direct cost savings.
  • It reduces the amount of raw storage space required by eliminating redundant data elements, leaving only a particular genuine copy taking the storage space.
  • Data de-duplication also reduces network bandwidth needs — when you store less data, you have to move less data too.
  • It makes management of data much easier.
  • Data deduplication forms major impacts on indirect costs- it reduces the space required for storage, cooling requirements, power use, etc. 

Is Compression and data deduplication are the same?

No, compression and data deduplication is not the same thing. As a matter of fact, they are complementary data reduction technologies that serve as a great way to reduce the cost of ownership for storage infrastructures. Both the terms are different in a way that while data deduplication happens with larger chucks of data, compression works on byte patterns across larger sets that individually are a few bytes long.

What are the different kinds of data deduplication?

When talking about the storage side, the two primary kinds of deduplication are:

  • File deduplication:File level deduplication software, as the name suggests works at the file level. This kind of deduplication is generally considered as a coarse level of deduplication. Furthermore, file deduplication works on whole identical files.
    • Block deduplication:Block level deduplication functions at the volume level by deduplicating the blocks of data that encompass the volume. It can even work on files that are just similar. Moreover, this kind of deduplication is usually considered as fine-grained as this method can often yield more substantial results than file-level deduplication.

What are the different modes in which data deduplication can happen?

Data deduplication can take place in a couple of different ways, such as:

  • Inline: Data deduplication is referred to as being in-line or in-band, when data is analyzed for duplicates while it is being written to the storage media. Although, in-line deduplication offers the prompt space saving benefits of data reduction, but is more resource concentrated that can bear on write execution.
  • Post Process: Post-process, also known as out-of-band deduplication, takes place after the data has been written to disk. Post-process deduplication does not bear upon write execution. However, it requires sufficient disk room to put up the whole data set till deduplication can take place during off-peak hours.

What are the good and poor candidates for deduplication?

Files that alter frequently and are continuously accessed byusers or applications are not a good candidate for deduplication. This is due o the reason that the unvarying access and modification to the data are expected to call off any optimization benefits created by deduplication.

Thus, the good candidate for deduplication is a file that hosts user documents, virtual files or software deployment files that hold data that is customized occasionally and read often. The files such as constantly mounted SQL Server database that is operating virtual machines and live Exchange Server databases are poor candidates for deduplication.

So, these are some basic questions that sum up almost everything about data deduplication, which is becoming a much hotter trend these days.

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