Diligent Touts Deduplication

Diligent Technologies launched June 11 two new versions of its data protection platform aimed at midsize IT environments.

With its ProtecTier Mid-Range packages, Diligent now has a small to midsize environment that can achieve enterprise-class, disk-based data protection at a lower price for smaller businesses, a company spokesperson said.

Diligent first introduced ProtecTier in 2005; it is powered by HyperFactor, its in-line data deduplication feature, which is designed to save money by making data storage more efficient.

Resource Library:

ProtecTier Mid-Range Entry Package includes up to 8 terabytes of physical capacity and supports up to 12 virtual tape drives, up to two virtual tape libraries and up to 200TB of usable capacity. ProtecTier Mid-Range Standard Package includes up to 20TB of physical capacity and supports up to 16 virtual tape drives, up to four virtual tape libraries and up to 500TB of usable capacity.

Diligent, in Framingham, Mass., is jumping headfirst into a pool of SMB-hunting sharks that include Data Domain, Hewlett-Packard, Network Appliance and Quantum Storage Systems. Storage giants EMC and IBM have also been vocal about trying to attract more SMB customers.

"This announcement shows that Diligent is intent on giving Data Domain some head-to-head competition in the midrange," Heidi Biggar, storage analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group, told eWEEK. "However, I think its important to note that the D2D market is still emerging and is big enough to support multiple large players going forward. Theres plenty of market to go around."

Biggar said Diligent differentiates itself in the market from a VTL (virtual tape library) perspective because it has a field-proven deduplication capability.

"While Data Domain offers a VTL interface for its DDX arrays, its traction is coming from its NAS product," Biggar said. "Other VTL folks [such as Quantum, Sepaton and FalconStor] have much more recently brought dedupe capability to market. Also, Diligent has found a great partner in [Hitachi Data Systems], and vice versa."

Does this new development elevate Diligent to a new level in relation to the bigger-name players?

"Id contend that Diligent is already a real player in this emerging market; its emphasis on data has simply been at the high end rather than in the midrange, where Data Domain has seen great traction [for an early market]," Biggar said. "Diligent is selling a product that is both priced and packaged for this level of user. Its previous higher-end plays involved a lot of customization. This is a good thing for the high-end customer, but midrange users generally want something a little more plug-and-play."

While Diligent is moving downstream, Data Domain is expanding its reach upward with its new DD580 arrays, Biggar said.

"Midsized environments have the same need for high levels of data protection, data recoverability and long-term data retention as their enterprise counterparts, but often do not have the same budget," said Arun Taneja, an analyst with Taneja Group.

"I am glad to see that Diligent is bringing ProtecTier to this segment of the market, allowing smaller customers to satisfy their data protection requirements while easily fitting within their budgets," Taneja said.

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