The Data Domain product line consists of a range of appliances and software options to run on them focused primarily on providing disk-based nearline or backup storage for Enterprises. Offerings in the product line scale from remote to core data center deployments and include both units with self-contained storage as well as a gateway appliance that can be used in conjunction with 3rd party FC disks or SANs.

The key feature of the Data Domain product line is deduplication; the products deduplicate data inline as it is stored and additionally compress the data to achieve, according to the vendor, an average 20x reduction in size over time. In addition to total capacity reduction for the stored data, the vendor notes that overall data transmissions for replicated data over WAN links is also reduced, as the deduplication technology can be applied in conjunction with the vendor's replication technology for remote site implementations. Deduplication can be applied to data patterns within a file, across files, and within a block.

In addition to deduplication, the vendor also lists their "Data Invulnerability Architecture" technology as a key selling point; technology that ensures data integrity both via read after write verification (which occurs during the backup process), and continuous data checking and scrubbing for restorability after the data has been written. RAID 6 is supported, protecting against the failure of up to 2 disks simultaneously.

Each of the Data Domain offerings can be deployed and accessed/utilized in the Enterprise via a choice of three interface methods: as a File Server (with support for NFS, CIFS, NDMP) with Ethernet connectivity; a VTL over Fibre Channel; or via Symantec's OpenStorage. All three interfaces can be utilized simultaneously by each appliance.

Optional software components enhance the functionality of the base appliance platforms, and include the aforementioned VTL software and replication software (which allows WAN-connected remote sites to replicate their data to a central DDX array).

Product entries in the vendor's arsenal range from the new DD120, which is targeted to remote branches, includes up to 373 GB of raw capacity, and supports throughputs of up to 150 GB/hour (the DD120 ships with the replication software built in); to the DDX arrays, which are targeted to the data center core and can handle up to 504 TB of raw capacity, transmission throughputs of up to 12.8 TB/hour, and management of up to 320 remote sites in a fully loaded (16 controllers x 3U per controller) system. Also available is the vendor's DD580g Gateway appliance, which ships with none of its own storage but instead leverages existing FC disks or SAN fabrics for storage.

The Data Domain appliances are available now. The new DD120 is priced at $12,500.

Visit the vendor's Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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