Data Domain Introduces New DD880 De-Dupe Appliance

Data Domain announced the Data Domain DD880, the industry’s highest performance inline deduplication storage system for enterprise backup and archive applications.

With aggregate throughput up to 5.4 TB/hour, faster per controller than conventional virtual tape library (VTL) systems, and single-stream throughput up to 1.2 TB/hour to enable protection of large databases in short backup windows, the DD880 establishes consistently high benchmarks across the spectrum of common data centre backup metrics. A DD880 system supports up to 71 TB of associated addressable, post-RAID, pre-deduplication disk storage. A fully configured Data Domain DDX Array with 16 DD880 controllers increases aggregate throughput performance to up to 86 TB/hour and offers up to 56 petabytes of usable capacity, delivering the capability for long-term online retention to large, consolidated data centres.
 
Unlike most VTL systems or other backup storage targets, the DD880 deduplicates data inline using an approach in which throughput is gated by factors that are CPU-centric, not disk centric. The DD880’s price/performance is enabled by the Data Domain SISL (Stream-Informed Segment Layout) scaling architecture to minimize the number of disk accesses required in the deduplication process. Data Domain systems ride the price/performance wave of multi-core processor architectures instead of depending on overprovisioned storage subsystems for throughput. As a result, Data Domain systems have improved in throughput geometrically, by more than a factor of 36 since 2004. Like all Data Domain systems, the DD880 supports NFS and CIFS by default, and offers both NetBackup OpenStorage and VTL as software options.
 
“There has been a popular misconception that inline deduplication systems cannot ingest backups as fast as backup solutions that write directly to disk and then execute data reduction processes,” said Brian Babineau, Sr. Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. “Maybe that was true at one point in time, or for specific implementations. Data Domain’s DD880 clearly proves that inline deduplication can be highly competitive in speed, even when compared to VTLs and other disk based backup targets with no deduplication at all.”
 
Also available is a new release of Data Domain Enterprise Manager, a graphic user interface (GUI)-based management infrastructure for Data Domain systems. Enterprise Manager now provides monitoring or configuration support for many system features including centralized management of multiple nodes and configuration of system replication and migration capabilities.
 
With the Data Domain Replicator software option, the DD880 can automate WAN vaulting for use in disaster recovery (DR), remote office backup, or multi-site tape consolidation. A single DD880 system can support a replication fan-in from up to 180 remote offices using smaller Data Domain systems such as the DD120. The DD880 can deduplicate globally across remote sites, further minimizing required bandwidth since only the first instance of data is transferred across any of the WAN segments. With the Data Domain Retention Lock software option, archive data can be locked for increased governance control or shredded when required to meet Department of Defense (DoD) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) specifications.
 
Like all Data Domain systems, the new DD880 is simple to install and flexible enough to be implemented into existing user environments without disruption. Backed by available Data Domain 24x7x365 enterprise class service, the DD880 supports leading backup and nearline archive software products on any standard storage fabric.
 
“The CPU-centric design enables the Data Domain DD880 to attain performance and scalability advantages that largely solve the concurrent stream versus capacity challenges we’ve previously balanced amongst our IT groups,” said Michael Passe, Storage Architect for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School with 621 licensed beds and more than 5,000 employees. “We chose Data Domain in part for its efficient, inline deduplication as we weren’t fans of the VTL paradigm or post-process approaches requiring capacity overhead that becomes a wasted, difficult-to-manage resource. As our weekly backups can surpass 100 TB, the DD880 can move data and compress to disk faster and retain backups on disk for longer periods which translates to less time spent managing processes.”
 
“We are a happy Data Domain customer, having implemented a DD690 system and gateway last year, and were eager to test the capabilities of the new DD880 system,” said Eddy Navarro, Computer Systems Manager for Storage at J. Craig Venter Institute, a world leader in genomic research. “I was particularly impressed with the increased storage density which can extend our data retention SLAs and double the effective storage capacity-to-footprint utilization within our data centre. The latest version of the Data Domain Operating System includes an enhanced Enterprise Manager with more detailed dashboards, configuration drill-downs and a centralized management interface, allowing my team to easily monitor and manage our systems at a glance.”
 
“It used to be that VTLs running at top speed could go faster without dedupe, storing straight to disk,” said Brian Biles, VP of Product Management at Data Domain. “This was one of the last defensible arguments for considering a post-process dedupe system architecture. That is so over. The DD880 doesn’t just change the game. It pulls the rug out from under the post process argument."
 

Why Architecture Matters
The DD880 is based on the same CPU-centric approach to inline data deduplication as all Data Domain systems. Unlike most deduplication approaches that are added as afterthoughts to existing disk arrays, Virtual Tape Libraries (VTLs) or backup software, combined efficiencies of Data Domain include:

• SISL scaling architecture leverages CPU improvements to increase deduplication speed inline while minimizing reliance on disk accesses for performance. Data Domain systems have delivered consistent improvement in throughput performance by nearly 36x and in capacity by more than 56x over the last 5 years. Based on Intel’s CPU roadmap, increased throughput is expected to continue growing significantly in the future.
• High performance inline deduplication for simplicity, to minimize system resources, administration, and internal system process contention.
• Green storage efficiency for a smaller system footprint and lower power consumption.
• Easy infrastructure integration with support for backup, archive or other nearline workloads, as a local consolidated storage tier and for remote networked DR.
• Data Domain Data Invulnerability Architecture defends against data integrity issues by providing continuous verification during storage and recovery of data.

Availability
The DD880 will be generally available in the third quarter of 2009.