Arkeia To Add Advanced Dedupe To Its Data Protection Software

Arkeia Software this week unveiled a new version of its data protection software which now integrates storage deduplication technology.

Bill Evans, CEO of San Diego-based Arkeia, said that its new Arkeia Network Backup 9.0 uses dedupe technology from Kadena, a software developer it acquired in 2009.

Arkeia's data protection software is the latest in a string of storage software and hardware offerings to get integrated dedupe. The Kadena dedupe technology is one of the best, Evans said.

"Kadena was founded and came out with dedupe technology before the term 'dedupe' became popular," he said.

Deduplication, also called "dedupe," removes duplicate information as data is stored, backed up, or archived. It can be done at the file level, where duplicate files are replaced with a marker pointing to one copy of the file, and/or at the sub-file or byte level, where duplicate bytes of data are removed and replaced by pointers, resulting in a significant decrease in storage capacity requirements.

Next: Arkeia's Advanced Dedupe

The dedupe technology employed in Arkeia Network Backup 9.0 provides source-based dedupe, which dedupes data before it is sent over the network for backup and archiving, Evans said.

The technology employs progressive deduplication, which Evans said improves on the variable-block dedupe commonly used by many vendors. With variable-block dedupe, the boundaries between blocks of data are set by the data itself. However, with Arkeia's progressive deduplication, the boundaries between blocks of data are set by the dedupe software for maximum performance and a higher dedupe ratio, he said.

The new dedupe feature is also application-aware and content-aware, Evans said. "We're able to compress a file better by knowing the type of data that's in the file," he said. "So whenever our software encounters, say, a PowerPoint file, it knows exactly the right block level to get the maximum compression ration. Different files compress better with different block sizes."

Arkeia in November will also recruit solution providers to help build a database of file types and their optimum block size for dedupe purposes with the release of its new "Profiler."

Profiler dedupes test files using a variety of block sizes to find which is best, and then updates the Arkeia software with the information, Evans said. "It's important for us to get this data," he said. "We don't have access to every data type in the world. We don't want one guy just guessing what is best."

Next: Dedupe For The Cloud

Customer data continues to grow at an exponential rate, and traditional dedupe methods have been an important part of reducing the amount of physical disk and tape needed to backup data while eliminating redundant copies of data, said Joe Lipman, vice president of sales at Advanced HPC, a San Diego-based solution provider and Arkeia partner.

The release of Arkeia Network Backup Version 9 will make it easier for Advanced HPC to take advantage of advanced deduplication technology to better serve customers moving towards cloud computing, Lipman said.

"As our customers have begun to push data to the cloud, and replicate data between sites, conserving bandwidth has become as much of an issue as conserving physical storage," he said. "By deduplicating at the source, we can not only free up the unnecessary storage, but eliminate unnecessary bandwidth costs, as well as shorten our customer's backup window."

Arkeia Network Backup Version 9 is scheduled to be available in early 2011 with progressive dedupe for Linux and Windows platforms initially, followed by support for AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Macintosh, Netware, and Solaris, Evans said.

The deduplication option will cost about $2,000 per media server initially, Evans said. However, the company plans to move towards adopting a capacity-based pricing model after the first quarter.