Corporate Cloud Embrace Exposes 3 De-Dupe Appliance Shortcomings

This report, published on March 30, 2023, was written by Jerome M. Wendt, president and founder, DCIG, LLC.

Corporate Cloud Embrace Exposes 3 De-Duplication Appliance Shortcomings

Over the last 20 years de-dupe appliances have become integral components in the backup strategies of many organizations. However, as more organizations implement hybrid clouds, they need to re-examine the role that de-dupe appliances play in them. While these appliances work well on-premises, they possess specific weaknesses that become more apparent when performing cloud recoveries.

Corporate embrace of cloud storage
Almost every company without exception expects to adopt the cloud in some way. Yet of all available cloud offerings cloud storage represents the one most will embrace first.

Cloud storage meets many of their most pressing concerns. Many companies store backups off-site to satisfy regulatory requirements plus it sets the stage for them to perform disaster recoveries. Others want to use cloud storage’s data immutability feature to mitigate ongoing ransomware concerns. Still others view cloud storage as their most viable option for long-term data retention citing its durability, resilience, and scale.

These reasons help explain why 84% of companies stand poised to increase their use of cloud storage. They want a simple, secure, cost-effective way to store their growing amounts of archival and backup data. At the same time, they want to offload the complexities and overhead of managing storage to someone else. Cloud storage aligns well with these current corporate priorities.

Many companies first move and store their archival and backup data on cloud storage. While sensible, companies must take steps to mitigate cloud storage’s ongoing monthly costs. One of these steps often entails storing their archival and backup data in a de-duped format in the cloud. Unfortunately, companies will find de-dupe appliances from existing hardware providers lack the cloud flexibility they may want and need.

Cloud shortcomings of de-dupe appliances
Companies can readily find de-dupe appliances from multiple providers that support storing multiple petabytes of data on cloud storage. However, storing petabytes of data on cloud storage represents only one consideration associated with using de-dupe appliances.

The caution in using these appliances stems from their lack of flexibility when it comes to usage in the cloud.

In every case, companies will find de-dupe appliances possess the following 3 limitations:

1. Hardware dependency. To obtain all the software functionality that a de-dupe appliance offers, companies must acquire it in a physical form. This may create a dependency to introduce a physical appliance into the provider’s cloud either initially or at some future point. This will not work. Cloud storage providers are very reluctant to deploy hardware that they do not own and manage into their data centers. None of the major cloud storage providers currently permit third-party de-dupe appliances.
2. Limited choice and feature set if hosted on cloud VMs. Hardware de-dupe providers often only run their software on their hardware. If they do run their software on hardware other than their own, they only allow it on VMs offered by cloud providers. Even then, the de-dupe hardware providers may only support hosting their software on a few approved cloud VMs. Further, these VMs offer a reduced set of the de-dupe appliance’s software features.
3. Cloud storage extension. This option represents the most common way hardware de-dupe appliances offer access to the cloud. They extend the ability of their physical appliance to store de-duped archival and backup data on cloud storage. Yet if, and when, companies need to recover, they face a dilemma. They can use the appliance to perform on-premises data recoveries. However, they may find they cannot easily recover this data in the cloud since they cannot place a physical de-dupe appliance there.

These 3 concerns exemplify why companies should consider a change to their data de-dupe strategy. Hardware de-dupe appliances do grant them access to cloud storage. However, it limits their options if they need to perform a recovery in the cloud. These cloud limitations make it imperative that companies adopt a data de-dupe strategy that utilizes a SDS de-dupe solution.

Embracing cloud storage requires SDS and de-dupe solution
Of the many available offerings from cloud providers, companies have clearly embraced cloud storage for practical reasons. It provides them access to durable, highly available, resilient, and scalable storage for their archival and backup data. Further, cloud storage remains affordable over time if companies deduplicate the archival and backup data they store on it.

However, companies that de-dupe data stored on cloud storage must do so thoughtfully. De-dupe appliances provide options to store de-duped data on cloud storage. However, storing de-duped data on cloud storage represents only one half of the equation. They must also think about the environments into which they may need to recover de-duped data.

Companies that consider all their backup and recovery requirements quickly see the need for an SDS de-dupe solution. Storing de-duped data on cloud storage only gets them so far. They must also select a data de-dupe strategy that positions them to recover both on-premises and in the cloud. Only certain SDS de-dupe solutions satisfy these new cloud recovery requirements.