Permabit Reveals Tier 1 Deduplication for OEMs

Deduplication for primary enterprise storage just received a major shot in the arm.

High-performance enterprise storage software provider Permabit Technology, which supplies a spate of companies that include IBM, Hewlett-Packard and CA, on June 7 started shipping a new data optimization package to its OEMs called Albireo, which features Tier 1 deduplication.

Deduplication, clearly the most in-demand storage feature for the past three years or so, has been used primarily in second-tier SATA-type arrays and not for primary (Tier 1) business-critical data storage. Tier 1 "dedupe," however, is beginning to get attention as a useful system addition.

Data deduplication at all levels eliminates redundant data from a disk storage device in order to lower storage space requirements, which in turn lowers data center power and cooling costs and lessens the amount of carbon dioxide produced to generate power to run the hardware.

Permabit claims that its Albireo data optimization software is the industry's first and only OEM-embedded data optimization software to offer high-performance Tier 1 data deduplication.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said Albireo enables OEMs to deploy subfile deduplication that does not affect data movement performance yet enables OEMs to continue to deploy their full feature set. It also ensures that data integrity is not impacted, Permabit said.

Key elements of the Albireo data optimization suite include a high-performance index engine with a scale-out grid storage architecture that can support petabytes of information; patented two-layer memory/disk index structure that delivers duplicate identification in microseconds; 140-plus-MB/second-per-CPU core with linear scale-out capabilities to thousands of megabytes; and data integrity that is maintained because data written to disk is not altered and integration occurs completely out of the data read path.

Other features include block, file and unified storage support; inline, parallel or post-process integration; variable-chunk segmentation with content-aware scanning that provides typical dedupe rates of 50 percent to 70 percent; a complete software development kit; and simple integration, with as few as six API calls.

"Albireo from Permabit will save an OEM 18 to 24 months getting to market, if they can do it at all," said Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.

"This stuff is so far ahead in its capabilities and performance, I can't see why you would want to do it yourself, unless you already have it baked. Expect some big announcements from some big players offering primary dedupe based on Albireo as soon as this summer."