Replacing DataDomain with NetApp E2860

[perez_cmz]

I'm looking to replace our DataDomain with a NetApp E2860. Has anyone had to do a similiar migration ? Does anyone have any advice/feedback ?

[Mouse]

Out of curiousity, what are you looking to achieve by this migration? Replacing a storage with arguably best deduplication capabilities on the market with a regular cheap storage will perhaps require 10x-20x larger E2860, depending on what is your dedupe rate now. Of course if you're backing up something encrypted/compressed already and not getting any dedupe from DD then it might be worth it as NetApp likely to be a fair bit cheaper.

As of the migration, couldn't be easier - configure a new Advanced Disk pool and storage unit, go to Catalog, select all images residing on DD and duplicate them to the newly created storage unit, expire source images after duplication. Replace all DD targets in SLP and you're done

[Marianne]

I am equally surprised that you want to replace an enterprise dedupe appliance with a regular storage array?

What are your plans with the NetApp E-series?
How will you implement it in NBU? Basic or Advanced disk? Or maybe MSDP?

MSDP would make some sort of sence, but you need to carefully read through Dedude manual about storage requirements. Especially write and read speed. And media server CPU and memory requirements.

[Nicolai]

deduplication is not the same

The type used for online storage is not the same as on a data protection appliance like Data Domain, StoreOnce or a Veritas MSDP appliance.

Online storage is time critical to I/O meaning time used for deduplication has to be limited.

Data Protection storage is not time critical so dedupe engine use more time resulting in superior dedupe rates over online storage.

Best Regards

Nicolai

[perez_cmz]

Thank you

Do you know where I can find some documentation on doing this ?

[perez_cmz]

I was surprised as well. This decision came from management. Cost of suppport for the DD860's had something to do with it.

Not sure how I'll be using it yet; possibly Advanced disk

Is there any documentation on doing this ?

[Marianne]

Ask your management what you are supposed to do with the NetApp storage.
If you configure Advanced Disk and start duplicating from DD, you will run out of space in no time.
As mentioned previously, DD gives excellent dedupe rates. You should have access to DD reports for your environment to confirm this.

MSDP would make more sense than Advanced Disk, but as previously mentioned, you need a seriously powerful media server as the dedupe engine resides on the NBU server.

Duplication of DD images will take up a lot of time, effort and network bandwidth as DD images need to be rehidrated during duplication process.

You may want to show your management this discussion ...

[perez_cmz]

I agree with all these valid arguments. I should mention no data is kept on the DataDomains for longer than 5 weeks.

Would it be possible to keep the DataDomains online (without backing up to it), and incorporate the NetApp ? I would remove the DataDomains once the data on there has expired.