Going Green with Block Level, Global De-duplication

Near ubiquitous connectivity has expanded the digital universe at a major cost to the environment. Huge amounts of money are being invested in data centers and these server farms are driving up the demand for energy and other resources. Yet, some experts estimate that only about 70% of the data stored by enterprises in the cloud is ever accessed!

It is estimated that the average utilization rate for a networked server is between 5-15 percent and between 20-40 percent for a non-networked servers. In brief, many companies are paying high-energy costs while only utilizing a fraction of their capacity.

Today’s green IT initiatives are pushing the technology industry for change. Block level de-duplication is an efficient method of minimizing the impact of data storage on the environment. The basic concept of block level de-duplication is that it reduces the amount of redundant data that is being stored. Storage requirements for multiple copies and variations of a file are significantly reduced by a process that discovers and logs exact duplicates across files and only stores the block once on disk. Files are then reconstructed by the backup system at restore time. Block level de-duplication can reduce network storage and bandwidth usage by up to 30% by achieving a 3:1 native data to compression/de-duplication ratio.

Operational costs of storage are high. As a result, these costs are a prime candidate for green computing optimizations. Different storage platforms have different attributes and these attributes impact performance, security and power utilization. Take for example tape libraries. These appliances are expensive to operate and require that tapes be physically moved and stored offsite in a climate controlled archive center. This is both costly to your budget and to the environment.

Inline block level de-duplication is a pre-process de-duplication technology that reduces data size before it is sent over the wire into storage. Minimal disk space, lower power consumption, and less cooling requirements, ensure that block level de-duplication adheres to green computing initiatives. Disk based de-duplication eliminates the need for tape usage and offers benefits such as reduced transportation costs, data security, better recovery time objectives (RTO), and improved recovery point objectives (RPO).

ROBOBAK is a complete “green” cloud based data protection solution for the Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) backup. ROBOBAK is designed to empower MSPs, VARs, and corporations to create public or private cloud based backup solutions.