Once you're running VMware, new VMs pop up like moles in the game, "Whack-A-Mole." And kind of like the moles, many of the VMs are identical, because they were all cloned from the same gold image. What does that mean from a backup perspective? It means that you're backing up the contents of that same gold image over and over again. These duplicate copies take up a lot of space, and your CFO, if he is savvy enough about data center technologies, will beg you to install some deduplication software (like PureDisk), which will cut your IT expenses dramatically.
Why? Two reasons. First, with PureDisk, you'll only backup one copy of each unique block, rather than multiple copies. The savings on storage from doing this are incredible - we've seen as high as 99%. Next, PureDisk puts less of a load on your ESX server than a traditional client inside the Guest VM does. What does that mean? Lower load per VM per ESX Server means you can put more VMs on each ESx Server. And better utilization of your hardware means real dollars saved.
PureDisk can be configured in multiple ways, too. First, it can sit inside the guest VM. This client-inside-the-guest is the intuitive, traditional approach and a lot of folks like it for that reason. This approach also generates the highest deduplication rates. The other deployment approach (not including from the Service Console, which we support but don't recommend) is in conjunction with VCB. When used with VCB, PureDisk sits on the proxy server (not inside any VM) and compresses the VMDK files. When used in conjunction with incremental backups (you remembered that we are the only vendor to offer incrementals via VCB, right?), PureDisk deduplicates and compresses those files too. So no matter how your VMware environment is set up, PureDisk can be deployed flexibly and in a way that will drive real ROI and cost savings.
And even your CFO likes that.
