This video doesn't talk about the merits of one versus the other but how when compression (or capacity optimization is done right) it should enhance data deduplication, not impact it. Enjoy and for more videos like this one go to the .
One of the more thoughtful analysts in the industry, in my opinion is George Crump from Storage Switzerland. (I like the name and George is as independent as you can get in
this business.) Yesterday I had the pleasure of briefing George on EMC's Data Protection Vision. I like talking with George for a couple of reasons. First, he gets it. What does that mean. Read his material. He is genuinely trying to educate IT folks on what is really important in the data center and how to address these challenges. Next, he keeps the 'pay for', 'vendor spin' to a minimum. George works hard to just talk about the facts of a product or industry and talk about how products can help without selling. The reality is, we live in a great technological time. The problem with IT is that only 50% of the problems are technology related. The other 50% is psychological. IT can't just implement new technology because its cool or even because it really does solve a problem. Sometimes new technology is too expensive to implement or the solution that is currently in place had a three year amortization and your only two years into your product life. Or, more importantly, the new technology may be the greatest technology at the right price but it doesn't fit into the current IT priorities. These are all things IT needs to work through when considering whether or not to invest in new technology. The other thing George and I spoke about was the fact that it gets difficult to be 'strategic' in IT especially given certain economic times. A lot of times IT just needs a band-aide or quick fix to move on to more important issues that really drive the business. I talk about this a lot, especially when it comes to backup. Lets face it, it may not be what we all want to hear but backup is not strategic to most environments. The applications that drive the business are most important. Backup is about risk mitigation and information availability if everything else fails. Right, 'if everything else fails', and IT typically invests in technology in the front end in an effort to have as little failure as possible. Meaning, IT doesn't just buy JBOD with no RAID if they think the environment shouldn't be put at that kind of risk. So IT is already investing in some risk management up front which drives the spend on the back end for data protection.
Okay, so the dust it taking more time to settle on the whole EMC / DDUP / NTAP saga, so given this may go on for a while, let's try to shed some light on 'why' EMC would
want this technology.
It's simple really, and it's analogues to the auto industry and hence the reference to the title of this piece. Rather than drone on about what 'Who killed the electric car?' I'll just tell you. GM, Chrysler, and Ford killed the electric car and by doing so drove themselves into bankruptcy and Toyota into the spot of number one car dealer in the world. The big difference? Toyota listened to its customers and developed and delivered products that consumers wanted. Consumers wanted safe, fuel efficient automobiles. Toyota delivered the Prius. GM built the Hummer, Chrysler built muscle cars and Ford continued to build on their truck reputation with more pickups. The American auto manufacturers killed the electric car. Had they listened to the consumer, they would have built more fuel efficient cars, consumers would have purchased them, and perhaps our dependence on foreign oil would be less significant, our world would be safer, and GM, Chrysler and Ford would still be in business and our economy would be a bit stronger. (Now, I am no politician and I can't say for sure that our world would be safer or that GM, Chrysler and Ford would definitely be in business, but I think you get the point.) The point is that vendors didn't listen to the consumer and now the vendors are wishing they had listened.
This is no different in the world of technology vendors. When I was an analyst for the Enterprise Storage Group, I saw a number of incumbent technology vendors discuss how they were building technology that complemented their existing product suite but didn't necessarily fit the important needs of their customers. After a short period of time (as with most things in the technology space) their technology would be replaced with a startup's technology ; the startup had listened to the customer's needs and developed and delivered on it. I also worked with a number of startup CEOs who believed they were building technology that no one could live without because it's what they themselves wanted, not what the consumer wanted. These companies usually went out of business pretty quickly.