EMC Attacks Tape’s Last Major Hideout with First Storage System for Backup and Archive

EMC® Corporation, the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, has announced the EMC Data Domain® Archiver, the industry’s first long-term retention system for backup and archive. Using DD Archiver, customers can employ a single disk-based de-duplication storage system to address both their operational backup needs and long-term data retention requirements.

The system delivers new operational efficiencies while eliminating the costs and complexities associated with a tape-based data retention approach. The new DD Archiver is based on industry-leading Data Domain systems and uses active and archive storage tiers united by a single namespace for cost-effective retention of backup and archive data for seven or more years.

The introduction of the new Data Domain Archiver completely changes users’ existing choices when it comes to the long-term retention of backup and archive data. Operational backup and recovery typically involves data retention periods of weeks or months, whereas long-term retention of data is measured in multiple months or years.

Today’s most common method of extended data retention is to keep tapes made for backups longer. In addition to creating a separate and very manual process, this choice carries distinct recovery risks and costs for users.

Over the past few years, disk-based backup with de-duplication has become the best practice for backup and operational recovery. DD Archiver users can choose to extend the retention period of their data without compromising backup performance while maintaining the cost optimisation and automation required to further reduce the use of tape.

News Summary

1. EMC introduces the new Data Domain Archiver, the industry’s first long-term retention system for backup and archive data.
2. Using a Data Domain controller and single namespace, it cost-effectively stores both backup and archive data on one system.
3. With performance up to 9.8 TB per hour, DD Archiver has the throughput required to meet demanding backup windows
4. Based on policy, the DD Archiver moves aging data to a scalable archive tier with de-duplication.
5. Up to 768TB of raw capacity extends disk-based retention times to 7 or more years and further minimises the use of tape
6. DD Archiver users can now more quickly and efficiently bridge the gap between backups retained as archives and the dedicated archive processes.

New Product Highlights

1. DD Archiver incorporates the controller from the new EMC Data Domain DD860 and other common Data Domain design elements to optimise performance, manageability and reliability across a single namespace.
2. With up to 9.8 TB per hour of throughput, DD Archiver delivers the speed required to first and foremost meet backup windows.
3. A tiered-storage design enables policy-driven movement of aging data from an active tier to a highly scalable archive tier.
4. Offers up to 768TB of raw capacity that can be allocated between tiers to balance user requirements of performance and retention.
5. Incorporates unique capabilities such as logical partitioning of older data for fault isolation, an upgrade and migration architecture, a more granular disaster recovery configuration, and the familiar Data Domain Data Invulnerability Architecture—all of which are required elements in a system that is designed for the long-term retention of backup and archive data.
6. DD Archiver supports today’s most common data archiving method, which is long-term retention of backups, as well as the increasing adoption of archiving workloads. Among many supported data movers and workloads, DD Archiver can also be leveraged with popular archiving solutions such as EMC SourceOne and EMC File Management Appliance.