EMC Data Domain Archiver Up to 768TB and 9.8TB/Hour

EMC Corporation announced the EMC Data Domain Archiver, a long term retention system for backup and archive.

Using DD Archiver, customers can employ a single disk-based deduplication storage system to address both their operational backup needs and long term data retention requirements. The system delivers new operational efficiencies while eliminating the costs and complexities associated with a tape-based data retention approach. The new DD Archiver is based on Data Domain systems and uses active and archive storage tiers united by a single namespace for cost effective retention of backup and archive data for seven or more years.

Background and Market Landscape
The introduction of the new Data Domain Archiver changes users’ existing choices when it comes to the long term retention of backup and archive data. Operational backup and recovery typically involves data retention periods of weeks or months, whereas long term retention of data is measured in multiple months or years. Today’s most common method of extended data retention is to keep tapes made for backups longer. In addition to creating a separate and very manual process, this choice carries distinct recovery risks and costs for users. Over the last few years, disk-based backup with deduplication has become the best practice for backup and operational recovery. DD Archiver users can choose to extend the retention period of their data without compromising backup performance while maintaining the cost optimization and automation required to further reduce the use of tape.

Product Highlights

• DD Archiver incorporates the controller from the new EMC Data Domain DD860 and other common Data Domain design elements to optimize performance, manageability, and reliability across a single namespace.
• With up to 9.8TB per hour of throughput, DD Archiver delivers the speed required to first and foremost meet backup windows.
• A tiered-storage design enables policy-driven movement of aging data from an active tier to a highly scalable archive tier.
• Offers up to 768TB of raw capacity that can be allocated between tiers to balance user requirements of performance and retention.
• Incorporates capabilities such as logical partitioning of older data for fault isolation, an upgrade and migration architecture, a more granular disaster recovery configuration, and the familiar Data Domain Data Invulnerability Architecture – all of which are required elements in a system that is designed for the long term retention of backup and archive data.
• DD Archiver supports today’s most common data archiving method, which is long term retention of backups, as well as the increasing adoption of archiving workloads. Among supported data movers and workloads, DD Archiver can also be leveraged with popular archiving solutions such as EMC SourceOne and EMC File Management Appliance.

"The EMC Data Domain Archiver is another example of EMC’s industry leading innovation. Our company chose EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems because they are easy to implement and provided a near instantaneous return on our investment by significantly reducing tape-based backups and recoveries. The DD Archiver positions our company to completely eliminate tape and to handle long term retention data intelligently. I was particularly impressed with the system’s architecture. By using the concept of archive units, DD Archiver is able to scale and store mass amounts of backup and archive data behind a single controller while protecting the data with innovative fault isolation capabilities. EMC has introduced another ground-breaking product," said Brian Doyle, Senior Systems Administrator for an educational financial planning corporation.

"Recent Gartner user research indicated that over 60% of large enterprises will be investing in data archiving or retirement by the end of 2011 to address the data growth challenge.  Existing tape and disk-based systems may not have the backup throughput or deduplication capabilities to make a meaningful difference in the way users deal with these challenges concurrently. By considering long term retention of backup and archive data in a single system, users will be able to meet their backup windows and quickly and easily respond to archiving demands," Sheila Childs, Research Director, Gartner.

"Over the past few years, thousands of enterprise customers have successfully leveraged Data Domain systems to reinvent their backup infrastructure while drastically reducing their use of tape in the process. With the EMC Data Domain Archiver, those same customers can now extend their backup redesign efforts to address long term data retention requirements – all on a single disk-based deduplication storage system. This is a fantastically simple and cost-effective approach for customers, and the solution is based on the industry’s leading deduplication storage solution," BJ Jenkins, President, EMC Backup Recovery Systems division.

Data Domain Archiver is available now.