Three Tips for Making the Right Choice between CDP and Deduplication

Deduplication is now widely recognized as a prerequisite technology for next generation data protection. While this is a correct view, to classify it as the only new technology that organizations need to consider in order to successfully redesign their backup infrastructure does not paint a complete picture. More specifically, the recent and rapid maturation of continuous data protection (CDP) has put organizations in a position where they need some criteria to make an informed decision as to how to proceed with these two technologies.

Articles and blogs that cover CDP and deduplication sometimes tend to put these two technologies in competition with one another. While there is some truth in this allegation since they are often both chasing the same funds budgeted for data protection, CDP and deduplication attempt to solve the same problem (backup and recovery) within organizations with very different results. So for organizations trying to decide between CDP and deduplication, here are three tips that can give you some insight as to how to best proceed:

1. Establish what level of change your organization is comfortable making.  This may seem like an odd statement to make but CDP opens up many more new possibilities for backup, disaster recovery (DR) and testing and development than what deduplication offers.

Deduplication is designed to work in conjunction with existing backup software and reduce backup data stores. It can be deployed with minimal disruption to your current backup environment while still improving backup success rates and backup and recovery times.

CDP will do this as well but its long term impact on an organization is more dramatic. It will force an organization to re-think and ultimately change the way it does backups and recoveries. CDP can initially run side-by-side with existing backup software but its end game is a change-over in its backup process to CDP as the first line of data protection. This is a shift your organization may or may not be prepared to make.

2. Know the scope of your authority and influence.  In my previous job as a storage administrator, I had a great deal of control over the storage solutions I selected. However the decision as what data protection software was used to protect applications was often still left to the many application owners that I supported.

In my case, it was easier and less disruptive to introduce a target-based deduplication solution such as the FalconStor VTL since the application owners could use it with whatever backup software they were already using. While a CDP solution like the FalconStor Continuous Data Protector was certainly a viable option, it required more buy-in on their part.

However it is no secret that more organizations are looking to centralize their data protection solutions so they can gain more value from their copies of their protected data while merging backup and recovery with disaster recovery. To do so, they have to give more authority to those put in positions of responsibility so they can deliver on these new requirements.

Those in this new position will likely find that CDP is a better fit to deliver on these objectives than deduplication because of the number of new application recovery and data management possibilities it delivers.

3. Be clear as what your organization's top priority is in regards to data protection.  Having this priority clearly stated and agreed upon as soon as possible will save you a lot of anguish and help you make the right choice between CDP and deduplication for your organization.

For instance, if your organization's primary concern is improving its current backup situation while improving and automating its local and offsite DR solution is still low on the backburner then it only logical to bring in a deduplication solution like the FalconStor VTL or FDS. However if your organization is ready to tackle the broader issue of DR and wants a solution that can deliver 10 to 30 minute application recoveries locally or remotely then a solution like the FalconStor Continuous Data Protector should be given a higher priority.

As organizations look to redesign their backup infrastructures, many will be confronted with a decision between CDP and deduplication. However the choice between these two technologies should not be viewed as a decision between "right and wrong" or "better and worse" but rather, "Which is the right one for me?" These are now both mature technologies with plenty of documented customer success stories to support the justification for their deployments.

To make the right decision, an organization (or those individuals within an organization responsible for its data protection and DR strategies) needs to know its culture, what its highest priorities are in regards to data protection and DR and how much authority those responsible for executing on the decision will have to carry it out. Once this information is known and agreed upon, it becomes fairly straightforward for the organization to decide whether CDP or deduplication is the best fit for it and the challenges it is trying to resolve.