Deduplication appliance or Backup Exec Deduplication Option

[jpmichelino]

Hello guy!

I have to design a backup solution with deduplication. All my Virtual Servers that I have to backup, have 6.5TB.

Also deduplicate the backups, I need reduce the backups windows time. I have two option to choose and I need help:
1) Put an appliance (DELL DR4100, w/ 4x1GbE, Nearland SAS 7.K RPM) that deduplicate the backups.
2) Put an storage (with 10K RPM Disks and FC 8Gbps) and deduplicate in the BackupExec server (with Deduplication Option).

I have similar costs in both option, but I need reduce the window time of backup. What is the best option?

Another question:
    How much reduces space with the Deduplication Option? (10:1, 5:1, etc)
    In the case of deduplication appliance, What is the way of the data? "From the client to appliance" or "from the client, arrive to BackupExec Server and it send to deduplication appliance".

Thank.

[teiva-boy]

Generally speaking, all supported OST appliances offer better speeds, and better dedupe than anything Symantec offers.  Of course this assumes, the OST device is sized correctly too from the vendor.

Building your own solution with your own disk, you'll constantly battle with are you getting the best performance with my sector sizes, formatting options, RAID card, server hardware?  It's a science experiment to get it right.

Make sure whatever appliance you get, it supports client-direct backups.  This way deduplication happens on the client, and it backs up directly to the storage device.  That is the ticket to performance.  If you don't have that, your BackupExec server will be your bottleneck.

[CraigV]

What about the Backup Exec 3600 appliance? Check this out on the Symantec website. It also offers 5.5TB disk space and the primary task is for dedupe backups. It has a SAS port to connect a tape device to it. Thanks!

[jpmichelino]

Thank teiva-boy and CraigV for answer me.

I'll make deduplication at third-party appliance(Dell DR4100). Now, I have a question: OST supported by this appliance, but I don't know how to dimension the Backup Server (How many RAM memory?, how many cores?, etc.) Anybody know how do it?

Thank.

[pkh]

See this document

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO74446

[Nielssie]

Did you know that you cannot replicate an OST container on a DR4000/ DR4100? Secondly, if you are going to use this over a slow WAN link, the scanning of a full backup will take longer than I would have excpected and completely saturates the line. (We have a 2Mbit site). However, de-duplication and compression works great on it. It depends on your data usage of course.