Quantum DXi7500 Express and QuikFit Sizing Bring Deduplication and "Plug-n-Play" Together for SMEs

One of the more elaborately crafted illusions that deduplication vendors have created over the last few years is that deduplication appliances are simply a "plug-n-play" proposition. In one respect, this is true. Companies can often introduce a deduplication appliance into their backup environment without substantially changing their existing backup configurations. Where the slight of hand comes in is when it comes to the vendor appropriately sizing the deduplication appliance for the client's environment. If it is too small or undersized, companies end up with a deduplication appliance that does not perform as anticipated; if it is too large, companies end up with an oversized appliance that costs them too much money.

Quantum's recent November 19, 2008, announcement of the new DXi7500 Express addresses the initial concern of small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) - creating a "plug-n-play" experience with an enterprise caliber deduplication solution at a price point they can afford. The DXi7500 Express integrates the hardware and software needed for midrange environments and includes licenses for deduplication, VTL and NAS interfaces at an MSRP of $98,250. The solution then functions as a "turnkey" version of Quantum's enterprise class DXi7500 model so that SMEs can expeditiously deploy the DXi7500 Express into their environments.

The DXi7500 Express does differ from the DXi7500 in that it only provides adaptive deduplication (as opposed to policy-based deduplication) and support for up to 7 TB of deduplicated data. However the good news is that companies can upgrade a DXi7500 Express to a DXi7500 and still gain access to its higher capacities, full tape creation capabilities, replication and a full suite of management options without replacing it.

In terms of helping customers appropriately size the DXi7500 Express for their backup environment, Quantum had to do some innovation and make some changes on their side. Quantum has found that customers can fairly accurately estimate how many servers they own and how much data they backup, but customer estimates as to the rate of data change and annual data growth in their backup environments tend to err on the conservative side. Couple these errors with incomplete information on the backup methodologies they use for specific applications and how long they retain data creates a scenario where appropriately sizing a deduplication appliance for the customer environment becomes a roll of the dice.

So to help take some of the uncertainty out of this initial sizing exercise, Quantum now provides its resellers with a new QuikFit sizing program. This process is intended to help resellers gather needed information from their customers so they can more precisely size and configure deduplication appliances. Examples of customer information that resellers now gather include:

• Annual data growth
• Anticipated period of on-disk retention
• Backup methodology (differentials, incrementals, fulls, frequency, etc.)
• Data compressibility
• Frequency of tape rotation
• Full backup windows

Responses from their customers are entered into an online form and then compared against a sizing tool that matches the customer's requirements to an appropriate size model of the Quantum's DXi-Series deduplication solutions. Quantum anticipates that the creation of this new online portal and accompanying sizing tool will enable its resellers to provide on-the-spot appliance sizing and rule of thumb prices for their clients.

Customers and vendors alike are discovering that the reality of implementing deduplication appliances rarely match the "plug-n-play" illusion that everyone wants to believe that deduplication appliances offer. However vendors are not giving up on trying to deliver on this ideal and SMEs and their resellers are starting to see some of the fruits of these efforts. The recent announcement of Quantum's DXi7500 Express and QuikFit program brings SMEs one step closer to seeing turnkey deduplication appliances delivered to their door and implemented in their backup environment with minimal setup and configuration required.