Permabit: Complete Data Reduction Software for Linux

Permabit Technology Corporation brought complete storage efficiency to Linux in 2016.

Its Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO) software delivers advanced deduplication, HIO/s compression and fine-grained thin provisioning directly to data centers as they struggle to address the storage density challenges driven by the growth of big data and widespread cloud adoption. VDO’s modular, OS-centric approach addresses a range of use cases from OLTP to backup workloads, in single system or distributed environments.

Chronologically in 2016, the firm announced:

• Availability of VDO for data centers on Red Hat, Inc.’ Enterprise Linux

• Partnership with LINBIT Information Technologies GmbH delivering bandwidth optimized offsite replication

• Support for VDO for Ubuntu Linux from Canonica Ltd

• Partnership with AHA Products Group (Comtech EF Data Corporation) to support development of advanced data compression solutions for Linux

• Partnership with Red Hat, Inc. and qualification of VDO with Red Hat Ceph Storage and Gluster Storage

• Reseller agreement with integration partner CalSoft Pvt. Ltd.

“General purpose data reduction has vast potential to control data center costs in the Linux ecosystem,” noted Lynn Renshaw, Peerless Business Intelligence. “In 2016, a single square foot of high density data center space costs up to $3,000 to build and consumes up to 11.4kW hours of power per year at an average cost of $1,357 per square foot in the USA. Roughly one third of all data center space is consumed by storage. Left unchecked, IDC estimates worldwide data center space will total 1.94 billion square feet by 2020. Data reduction (such as Permabit VDO) can reduce data center storage footprints as much as 75%. This technology alone could save $1.5 trillion dollars in future data center build out costs.“

The company generated excitement in 2016 with VDO’s ability to lower the TCO of software-defined storage (SDS) solutions. After witnessing the success of public cloud open source storage, many private data center operations teams began implementing software-based storage in 2016. Following the public cloud providers, private data centers embraced the economic advantages of vendor neutrality, hardware independence, and increased utilization that comes from SDS, while still customizing for their business requirements. VDO’s modular, OS-centric approach is deployed which is why major private data centers wrapped up successful evaluations of VDO within SDS solutions.

According to Tom Cook, CEO and president: “Dramatic changes in the storage industry over the past year have resulted in Permabit expanding from our traditional OEM only business model, to one positioned to address today’s software-defined data center requirements. As we looked at worldwide deployments of software defined infrastructure, we realized that Linux is at the center of innovation in the space. Because of this, as the only complete Linux data reduction solution, VDO is uniquely positioned to alter storage economics, drastically reducing TCO. With our expanded business model, immediate benefits can be realized across today’s Linux-based software-defined environments.“