De-Dupe and Archiving Top List for Reducing Storage Costs

A recent Acronis survey of more than 375 resellers across the UK has rated deduplication and archiving as the two most important technologies to help companies cut IT costs and become more efficient.

The survey placed deduplication and archiving equal first, with less than 2% difference between the two. Both technologies, which are central to any organisation’s storage optimisation strategy, were rated more highly than cloud, backup, data protection and virtualisation.

The economic downturn is placing increasing pressure on UK businesses to slash IT spending. IDC [IDC Digital Universe Study, sponsored by EMC, June 2011] report that the world’s information is doubling every two years, in 2011 the world created a staggering 1.8ZB and they predict that by 2020 the world will generate 50 times that amount of information. big data creation calls for efficient storage solutions, technologies that help optimise or extend the life of an organisation’s existing capital investments appear to be gaining popularity.

According to Alan Laing, VP EMEA, Acronis: "While other new technologies such as cloud and virtualisation are known to reduce long-term capital costs, technologies that immediately optimise efficiencies across existing storage infrastructure are becoming much more in vogue."

Chris Roche, MD of ACUTEC Limited, concurs with Laing’s view, stating: "Although this could be seen as a knee-jerk reaction, deduplication and archiving help reduce storage costs which makes good sense in the short-term. That said: once the economy picks up, resellers should expect a surge in more strategic long-term technology spending, and be ready to deal with it."

Laing believes that deduplication in particular is becoming a de facto element of any storage optimisation strategy, and thousands of companies are reclaiming swathes of existing storage capacity as a result. The efficiency benefits are further compounded when old data is migrated off primary storage to an archive, freeing additional capacity to support the business.

Laing concluded: "Together, deduplication and archiving make a strong case for squeezing the most out of an existing storage investment. We’ll continue to work closely with our channel partners to help them optimise their business around this growing opportunity."