Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'dedupe'

Corporate Agility is Within Your Reach

DELL-Angela Y — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Agility is a good characteristic for companies to have, particularly in today’s uncertain market. Companies that can move quickly to adapt to changing market conditions have a competitive advantage over those that can’t.

Unfortunately, agility is often perceived as a luxury. Too often, we think of agility in terms of final-state: complete interoperability of elegant systems and processes – requiring years of work and significant investment. In reality, the optimal level of agility for your company in today’s environment may be closer than you think.

Consider the average person’s approach to physical agility and general fitness. We all need regular exercise and a healthy diet, but many of us struggle when we think about the lifestyle change required to be in great shape. We hear that we need 60 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week, with a mix of cardio and strength training. We hear that we should eat only whole grains, cut out processed food, and we’re told that a “serving” of anything is about a third of the size of what most of us consider a normal portion. If you are not following these and other guidelines, the changes you’d need to make to be in optimal health can seem overwhelming – and prohibitive. As a result, many folks end up taking no action at all.

It’s too bad, because there is value in even 10 minutes of exercise a day, or in simply cutting out sugary drinks, or in a variety of other small changes. Small lifestyle tweaks like these can improve how we feel and how we function day to day. Similarly, improvement in a company’s agility need not require a massive business and technology transformation. Many improvements can be achieved without significant cost or disruption.

The most important step is to identify the goals of your agility play. I am a fan of Michael Hugos’ high-level approach described in this post with his formula for determining business agility -- he speaks of agility in terms of profitability. If your company can consistently earn profits that are two to four percent higher than market average, the assumption is that your company is adapting quickly to changing customer demands and market factors.

For example, if your company plans to maximize profitability by focusing on high-margin offerings to your customers, you need to build a capability to support an ever-changing portfolio of high-margin products as the market evolves and the margins shift. So what needs to happen in your environment in support of this capability? You might charter a cross-functional team to identify and update constraining technology and processes, or you might spin up a project or two to reduce prohibitive complexity in the foundation of your IT environment, or you might offer streamlined collaboration tools.

While there are many options to consider, remember that not all processes will need to be rationalized, and not all technology complexity will need to be removed from your environment before your agility increases – baby steps optimized to support the relatively narrow task at hand will allow you to be agile in the way your company requires to maximize profits as the market shifts.

It’s the corporate equivalent of committing to 10 pushups a day during tank-top season.

Think about where small changes and investments can make a big difference to your corporate agility, and I’ll do the same. Let me know if you've got other suggestions that worked at your company.

Meanwhile, I’m going to lace up my walking shoes and take a few trips around the block.

The Future of Data Deduplication

DELL-Greg W — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Data deduplication is a topic being asked about by our customers, and being discussed in the media, more and more. Would you like to know Dell’s take on it?

In the video below, Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager of Dell's storage business, discusses Dell’s view on the future of this technology and what we are doing to help deliver solutions to meet your data management needs. (If you'd like to download the slides in this video, they are available on Dell's Slideshare account here.)

We are announcing enhancements to our deduplication portfolio, both in services to help you understand holistically how you might benefit from de-duplication, as well as in products that help address your storage challenges. That's the conversation should be about -- how you can best solve your problems related to data growth, protection and access.

Dell views deduplication as a feature of storage, one that may help you optimize your investments in data management. However, it's not the only one to accomplish this goal. Our view is that deduplication it is not, by itself, a solution.

Deduplication can be implemented in different ways, whether through dedicated appliances or through integration into existing areas, such as in backup software.

Dell's view is that an integrated approach -- a feature of your software -- provides the greatest benefits to you. In this way, deduplication becomes ubiquitous across many aspects of the data path, from applications through operating systems and backup, where it is focused today. We are helping to drive this evolution.

Before you can decide which approach to take to optimize your storage, though, you need to understand your unique needs and environment. Dell deduplication services can help. Our services teams can assess your needs, provide recommendations and implement solutions, whatever they may be – instead of just figuring out how to make a single approach work.

For more information on deduplication, I'd encourage you to take a look at www.dell.com/deduplication.

And if you have a more technical focus or appetite, I invite you to join us next week at Dell TechCenter for a live chat on this topic.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Simplifying ‘De-Dupe’ with a Common Architecture

DELL-Brett R — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Lately, we’ve been talking a lot about server technology in this blog, but storage is an equally important component of how to Simplify and Save with IT. And we’ve got important news.

A few weeks ago, we announced a new commitment to dramatically simplify de-duplication via a single de-duplication architecture across our PowerVault EqualLogic and Dell/EMC product families.

The very practice of de-duping simplifies data management by eliminating redundant copies of data… residing in multiple applications… on multiple hardware products. It saves money by reducing the amount of storage capacity required for back-up, with compression ratios that can range from 10:1 to as high as 30:1. De-duping also reduces the amount of network bandwidth required, especially during back-up or archiving.

With the compatibility that comes with a common architecture, customers will now find it much easier to replicate and de-duplicate data across multiple sites, from departments or branch offices to the data center. They will spend less time and effort, and also benefit from the cost reductions that non-proprietary technology always provides over the long term.

To further simplify de-duping, Dell offers a full range of services to help customers assess their current situation, design a comprehensive de-duplication solution and then implement it.

For more details, please check out the vlog below.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

EqualLogic Dedupe? Check out the Exagrid iSCSI Gateway

marc_farley — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Alex McDonald at Netapp made a few snarky comments today about Dell's acquisition of EqualLogic. As if Netapp should be casting stones about anybody else's acquisitions. Anybody remember Spinnaker? Dell has made very rapid progress with EqualLogic and now Netapp is desperate to find ways to compete.

But I should really thank Alex for reminding me to post about our partnership with Exagrid for de-duplication functionality. Exagrid has excellent technology and they are fast gaining recognition and traction with their products - including their ExaGrid iSCSI De-duplication Gateway™.

FWIW, Alex linked to this post of mine on Storage@work from last March , to support his assertion we would never have a de-dupe solution. Hmmm.... maybe he was speed reading beyond his limits. Whatever - I guess he missed the context where our partner Exagrid was preparing to announce their dedupe appliance for iSCSI.