Deduplication helps to streamline a business

Modern businesses are highly dependent on large volumes of data. This is more so in sectors like the hospitality industry, financial industry (banking & insurance) and various other government agencies and organisations. Right until the recent past the management of data was handled by IT specialists who had the daunting task of maintaining data storage as well as having to ensure that all the information was secure. To store additional data additional storage need to be purchased. Thanks fully the introduction of deduplication has greatly reduced that need.

Some of the benefits of using dedupe software are:

Less storage space: Deduplication can help to decrease storage requirements by as much as 80% for files and backups. That makes it possible for any business to store a greater volume of backup data without having to incur additional expenses on disk purchases.  It is the most effective way to store data and is very cost-effective as well as swift.

Improved replication: As only unique data is added to a disk, a select number of those particular blocks are replicated. It can help to reduce traffic levels that would otherwise been caused by replicating redundant data.

Improves bandwidth: With no duplicate copies transmitted over a network through the use of dedupe software at the source, it helps to improve bandwidth

Eco-friendly: Deduplication is an eco-friendly process as it uses less power and storage space which would be needed otherwise

Quick recovery:  It ensures data continuity, helps in quicker recovery for seamless and uninterrupted processes

Reduces cost and increases profits: As there is less need to buy and maintain less storage equipment it helps to slash costs and increases returns on investment

Note: Dedupe can work as two levels

File Level: Through the use of file level deduplication duplicate files are removed, with pointers replacing them for a single instance. Although file deduplication is more effective, the drawback in this is that even if a minor modification is made to the file an additional copy is generated and stored.

Block Level: Deduplication at the block level offers much more efficient storage capacity. The process is carried out through a search for redundant information which identifies chunks of data that are 4KB and larger and stored only in a single copy, irrespective of the number of copies available. These copies are then substituted by pointers that reference the original chunk of data in a seamless manner. The user can make use of the file without any interruption even if the blocks of data also contain other data.

Right upto recent times deduplication was considered to be an exclusive preserve for conglomerates and large enterprises only, on account of their massive cost, challenging learning curve and with just file deduplication available. It also at that time could only be used in support of servers, although it was known that massive amounts data were stored at workstation levels in most IT enterprises. All of that has since changed with data deduplication software now having better features and being more cost effective.