Search This Blog

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The down and dirty on data deduplication

Network World

Product Test and Buyer's Guide




Product Test and Buyer's Guide, 07/24/07

By Logan Harbaugh

At its core, data deduplication is a simple concept. Stored data is parsed for duplicate sequences, and when duplicates are found, a pointer to the first instance is inserted in place of the duplicated data.

For example, using a product that supports data deduplication, a backup of an Exchange server in which 20 recipients have received the same attachment would store only the first instance of that attachment with all others pointing back to it.

Under this scheme, the many parts of different files that are similar need to be stored only once. For instance, if the first few lines of a document contain the path name of the document, that name will be generally the same for all the documents in a folder.

Optimize Your WAN: Network World Shows You How

In this Executive Guide learn how optimization can supercharge your WAN.

Click Here

If the path name is 40 characters long, and the first 29 are the same for all of the files, the 29 bytes in all of those files after the first one are replaced with a pointer. Because many types of files have structural elements that are similar from file to file, and PowerPoint or PDF documents may contain the same text as the original Word document, the same strings of text recur in many documents.

For more on this test, please click here.

TODAY'S MOST-READ STORIES:

1. Cisco: its gear caused Duke's iPhone flooding
2. 11 corporate anthems to die for
3. HP to acquire Opsware in $1.6B deal
4. 12 IT skills that employers can't say no to
5. Hogwarts IT director quits
6. Microsoft 'silently' restores root certificates
7. Cisco facing up to challenges
8. Duke CIO releases statement on disruptions
9. Security team claims successful iPhone hack
10. Readers speculate on Duke's iPhone problem

MOST E-MAILED STORY:
Hogwarts IT director quits


Contact the author:
Harbaugh is a freelance writer and IT consultant in Redding, Calif. He can be reached at logan@lharba.com.

BONUS FEATURE

IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details.


PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE
You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today.

International subscribers, click here.


SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here.

This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription.


Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza

Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772

Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007

No comments: