Technology >> Scalable Data ReductionTM
(SDR)
Permabit's SDR technology combines high performance
deduplication with traditional compression techniques. Permabit's
massively scalable deduplication approach identifies segments of data
within incoming data streams that are duplicates of segments already
stored. Instead of storing additional redundant copies of these
segments, Permabit stores additional references to the existing
copies. Traditional compression techniques then compress any remaining
segments before data is stored to disk. Permabit's deduplication
technology is much more effective than traditional data compression
techniques alone because it compares new incoming data with a complete
history of all previously stored data. The actual level of data
reduction obtained by Permabit's customers depends on the frequency of
archive events, the length of time archive data is retained, and the
inherent redundancy of the archive data.
SDR and Snapshots
SDR also enables fast and efficient data snapshot capabilities.
Permabit snapshots can be later used to access information that
may have inadvertently been deleted from an active Permabit
volume. Snapshots of a volume are created automatically at
scheduled intervals or triggered manually by an administrator.
These snapshots can be used for versioning, for compliance
purposes (to demonstrate the state of data at a specific point in
time), and as a fast and efficient data restoration mechanism for
recovering inadvertently deleted information.
Permabit's snapshots provide two levels of space
savings by referencing the existing data in a volume. When a snapshot
is taken, it initially uses almost no additional space (less than one
kilobyte) because conventional copy-on-write techniques allow both the
snapshot and the active read/write volume to reference the same data
segments. As the volume changes over time a snapshot may consume more
space, but only as files are deleted or modified. SDR also reduces
snapshot storage requirements in a manner that no other vendor
provides by allowing deduplication not just against previous versions
of the same file, but also against any other data in the system. If a
snapshot is taken and a file contained within that snapshot is copied
to a different volume in the system, no additional space is
consumed.
SDR makes Permabit's snapshots extremely lightweight
in terms of performance and space requirements. Large numbers of
snapshots do not slow down Permabit systems, which can support
thousands of snapshots, avoiding the 255 snapshot restriction seen
with traditional snapshot implementations. Direct integration between
snapshot and deduplication technologies enables Permabit storage to
seamlessly address key archive requirements in large enterprise
environments.
More Information
Additional information on SDR is available in the
Permabit white paper, "Permabit Enterprise Archive
Scalable Data Reduction", available in
the Resource Library.
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