BridgeSTOR Rolling Out Crunch Virtual Appliance (From $200/Month/Appliance)

BridgeSTOR, LLC announced the CRUNCH Virtual Deduplication Appliance for deduplicating VMware, Hyper-V and other virtual machine images for storage on tape or in the Cloud.

CRUNCH enables server virtualization users to store deduplicated images offsite for DR, archive and other long term data retention applications. It substantially reduces offsite storage capacity requirements and costs, reduces 3rd party monthly physical storage charges, reduces tape cartridge transportation charges, reduces the number of tape cartridges that need to be purchased and maintained while reducing tape management time and operational expense.

"CRUNCH is based on BridgeSTOR’s 2nd generation Data Deduplication File System (DDFS), a breakthrough in cloud-enabled data deduplication that operates at both the file and sub-file (data block) level," says John Matze, CEO, BridgeSTOR. "CRUNCH and DDFS result from a significant development effort by an industry-leading team of deduplication experts."

CRUNCH reduces the off-site storage requirements of all data types, but highlights specialized algorithms that recognize the unique characteristics of virtual machine images (VHD, VMDK, VDI and others). When a virtual machine image is encountered, DDFS automatically invokes these specialized algorithms to maximize the deduplication of these data types. The algorithm not only deduplicates across collections of VHD, VMDK, VDI and other virtual machine images of the same type, but also deduplicates across dissimilar virtual machine image types.

Deduplicated data stored on tape can be further reduced in size through compression and can also be encrypted (compression and encryption are performed by the tape drive) to minimize the cost and complexity of storing critical data offsite.

Other DDFS features include NearTime Deduplication, ProtectedCloud Security, SHA Exchange MAN/LAN/WAN replication, Global Deduplication and an unlimited number of Data Recovery Points.

Finally, deduplicated virtual machine images retained on local disk can be natively mounted, enabling data recovery.

Virtual server users will soon be able to download an evaluation copy of CRUNCH from the company’s website. This capability will be announced in a future press release.

CRUNCH is offered through a BridgeSTOR Deduplication as a Service (DaaS) subscription. User signs up for a period of time, receives value over that period and then, at the end of the subscription period determines whether or not to renew. DaaS customers pay only for the services provided.

The DaaS business subscription model does not require that the service be in the cloud or delivered via the cloud. BridgeSTOR’s DaaS offering includes on-premises Virtual Deduplication Appliances, installation assistance, software, service, support and upgrades in functionality including expanded Cloud connectivity and interoperability.

This DaaS approach is not capacity based nor is it sensitive to the number and/or type of virtual machine images you elect to deduplicate, the server hardware on which the virtual appliance is run, whether you use the tape cartridge or cloud output options, whether you elect to use ProtectedCloud Security or any other feature.

The DaaS model is based on monthly fixed charges. There are no upgrades nor additional features that are not included in the base monthly charge. No CAPEX is required because DaaS is a pure OPEX offering.

CRUNCH subscription fees start at $200 per month per virtual appliance.