Dell EMC has changed the name of its Data Domain product line to PowerProtect, to coincide with the launch of bigger, faster systems.
Data Domain is Dell EMC’s deduplicating backup to disk array target and is the market leader in purpose-built backup arrays, according to IDC.
It has a back-end cloud storage facility with multiple public clouds and works with various backup software vendors to deduplicate backups before they are sent to the arrays. This accelerates data ingest speed.
Speeds and feeds
The old product line starts with the software-only DD Virtual Edition and includes various scale-up appliances from the mid-range DD3300 through DD6300, DD6800, and DD9300 to the top-end DD9800.
The DD6300 and DD6800 are replaced by the new DD6900, the DD9300 by the DD9400 and the DD9900 replaces the DD9800. That’s four products replaced by three.
The new systems are faster, using PowerEdge servers, and store more data in less rack space; they use 8TB disk drives instead of the 4TB ones mainly used before. They store metadata in SSDs.
Why not use larger drives still as 14TB and 16TB ones are available? Beth Phalen, President, Dell EMC data protection division, told us that the 8TB drives provided the ideal mix of cost, reliability and performance.
Dell EMC said it has improved logical capacity by up to 30 per cent and data reduction by up to 65x. Backups are up to 38 per cent faster and restores up to 36 per cent quicker.
The product can provide instant access and instant restore of up to 60,000 IOPS for up to 64 virtual machines; it was 40,000 IOPS before. Phalen said this was achieved with the help of a larger cache and improvements to the file system inside the system’s software.
The new systems also support 25GbE and 100GbE network speeds.
Here is a speeds and feeds table:
We have positioned the old and new model ranges, using usable capacity and ingress speed, in the chart below.
In addition, PowerProtect Software has stronger integration with vSphere, enabling self-service recovery. It supports cloud disaster recovery for automated disaster recovery fail-over and failback of VMware workloads in the public cloud. The software integrates with PowerProtect Cyber Recovery to protect against malware. This provides automated data recovery from a secure, isolated vault to ensue clean data.
Phalen told us Dell EMC is now on a quarterly release cycle for software updates to the PowerProtect systems, and the company will release new features more quickly.
PowerProtect DD VE and DD3300 products are available now, as are the PowerProtect Software and Cyber Recovery. The DD6900, 9400 and 9900 are globally available from September 30.
Dell EMC is standardising on PowerX branding across its product range; witness PowerMax arrays, PowerEdge servers, and PowerSwitch networking products. Now we have PowerProtect backup boxes and software.
