Quantum DXi6700 series vs. EMC DataDomain

Quantum DXi6700 series vs. EMC DataDomain

As we know that the quantum DXi series appliance is a disk based backup solution and their solution are quite similar to the data domain solutions, one thing they claim in market that the DD uses their patent variable size segment technology in their DD box. So the quantum is giving quite a tough fight to the EMC data domain, but quantum is new to the Indian market, it will take time for quantum to make their footprint in Indian market.

Quantum has launched their Dxi Accent software with their new quantum Dxi6700 series boxes which is Dxi6701 and Dxi6702

Dxi Accent software distributes the deduplication work between the backup software and the Dxi appliance. This software is similar to the EMC DDBoost software.

Quantum have one big plus point is that they have the direct tape out capability in their quantum Dxi storage box and they know very well that the tape is not going to get replaced because they are still the cheaper options for the long term retention of data. And quantum produces their own tape devices , so by this direct tape out capability the quantum Dxi boxes can get attached to the quantum tape libraries and send data directly to the tape, and in data domain there is no such type of features, which again creates a performance bottle neck when we need to send the data from the data domain boxes to the tape which will again use the separate or existing network, and as we know that EMC does not manufacture any tape device , so if some issue get occurred while sending the data from the datadomain to the tape via network then we can get stuck in getting support from two different vendors, one of EMC datadomain and one of the tape vendor, while in case of quantum if you are using the quantum Dxi appliance and their tape in your environment , if some issue happens then you can get the complete support for both the Dxi appliance and the tape device, which is again a plus point for quantum in support and services.

Quantum vmpro software is a specially designed software to take the vmware backup as, we know that in today’s world as fast the things are getting virtualized the more the data getting created and tougher the process is getting to take backup of these virtual machines, how to take a proper virtual machines backup, the quantum vmpro is the solution for taking the dedup backup of the virtual machine properly and speedily to the Dxi appliance.

Quantum Dxi 6700 series is compared by the EMC DD 670, and now I need to show you all, some of the performance details published by the Evaluator group regarding the quantum Dxi6702 performance in their report.

The Dxi6702 was the highest performing data deduplication system evaluated by evaluator group to date. Perhaps more important than the raw performance level, the price performance of the Dxi6700 systems outpace all currently competing system in their category.

Performance met or exceeded claimed values for the Dxi6700 with multiple protocols (NFS, VTL and OST)

1.   OST performance was 5.9TB/hr. for Dxi6702 (vs. 5.4TB/hr. for DataDomain DD670 with DD Boost per published specifications).

2.   VTL performance was 5.9 TB/hr. for Dxi6701 (vs. 3.6 TB/hr. for DataDomain DD670 per published specifications).

3.   NFS performance was 4.4 TB/hr. for Dxi6701 (vs. no specification published by the datdomain DD670).

As per the Evaluator group, Evaluation report.

1.   Quantum’s deduplication delivered the best result in the midrange category across multiple protocols, with a minimal disk configuration.

2.   Industry leading midrange performance for CIFS, NFS, VTL, OST with the distributed deduplication.

3.   Performance with or without distributed deduplication (Dxi Accent) met or exceeded that of midrange industry leaders.

4.   The throughput wasn’t limited with number of drives- maximum performance was available with the minimum configuration of 8TB in a raid 6 configuration.

Additionally the following results were observed.

1.   Hybrid backup modes using DXi Accent and traditional backup are supported simultaneously.

2.   DXi Accent is able to improve the backup performance when network bottleneck exist and significantly accelerate WAN based backup.

3.   The performance scaled rapidly, surpassing the stated performance levels with 35 streams.

4.   Unique path to tape feature can enhance the performance when moving a copy of data to tape, providing a practical method for creating data for long term retention.

As we know that the deduplication technology is so resource utilization technology, so proper care should be taken for indexing the data files and because the DXi with solid state disk not only increases the performance by storing the index files in the solid state but also tune the indexing operations.

As datadomin also do its indexing operation on the cache, but it does not store it in cache, so loading the index file from the sata to the cache again decrease some of the performance.

Some of the Plus point features of Quantum.

Virtual backup Enhancement: the new Quantum VmPRO virtual backup appliance combines a DXi system with software to enhance backing up VMware virtual machines. This software runs as a virtual appliance and discover all virtual machines in the network. Each VM’s data store is then mapped as individual file system, with complete access to internal file system. This enables the backup application to treat and protect VMware virtual machines as a collection of files.

As we know that DataDomain does not have some of specific software feature to take care of the virtual machines backup, so mostly we need to depend on the backup software for backing up of the virtual machine, which again can be bottle neck when we face issue on backing up of virtual machines.

DXi6700 Direct Tape Creation: I would like to say that this is one of the best features that will not only reduce the EMC footprints in backup world but also help many customers to send the data back to the tape for the long term retention by using the direct-tape-path features of quantum, as we know that keeping data for long term on disk can be very costly, so long term retention data has to be moved to the tape, so again sending data to the tape from the disk based backup solution becomes again a big issue , because of not having the direct tape out features, so we need to use either the production lan or create a spate network to send the data from the disk based backup device to the tape device.

Quantum has integrated the use of D2D appliance with tape by including direct tape creation in their Dxi6700 D2D and VTL products. Quantum path to tape support application directed movement of data to tape with either VTL or OST protocols. This capability offloads production SAN and LAN networks and backup server when making the secondary copies to the tape.

With direct connectivity between the Dxi system and tape via dedicated Fiber Channel ports, data may be sent directly to tape drives, offloading backup servers, primary storage system and application servers. Data is sent  under the direction of data protection software, allowing  backup application to maintain awareness of where all copies of data resides, and data copied to tape is expanded back to its native format and then compressed using industry-standards algorithms. By storing data in non-deduplication native format on tape, the long-term retention of data is enhanced while minimizing requirements for data restoration from tape. This provides the LAN and SAN free method of moving data to tape for off-site storage or long-term retention.

Well EMC data domain does not have direct –tape –path features, so sending the data from the datadomain device to tape can again be a headache for customer or backup administrator.

Ease of Management

Well at the end the management  tools comes into picture after buying the compliance if it’s GUI is difficult to understand or not much user friendly then the survival change of that particular product is very less in market.

So the Management of that particular device from its GUI should be very user-friendly and should also provide the useful monitoring data, to keep records for future reference, proper graph like charts and maximum details should be gathered or viewed by that tool.

I have not used any management tool of quantum device, so I cannot explain my experience of that tool, but below given is the data which Evaluation group has provided of Quantum Dxi GUI features and its ease of usability.

Quantum DXi GUI:

Evaluator Group found Quantum’s DXi GUI and other management tools score well in comparison to other deduplication system evaluated by EGI for ease of use. This is based on the following factors:

1.   Bundled pricing, without capacity-based licensing- results in lower and predictable cost for users(significant benefit vs many competitors)

2.   Both GUI and CLI can be used to perform the entire task.

3.   The GUI was intuitive and as easy to use as any competing system.

4.   The embedded GUI is accessible via web browser, requiring no external software installation.

5.   The additional management tools were well integrated and provided significant value.

6.   The DXi  Advanced reporting tool provided  significant  performance analysis benefits such as

The ability to view six year of historical data for logged parameters exceeds the leading competitor

DXi advance reporting can be run simultaneously for multiple appliances through quantum vision

Enables administrator to find and resolve bottlenecks and generate historical trend report.

7.   Quantum vision now provides tighter integration and ability to monitor, troubleshoot and analyze performance in enterprise setting.

8.   New ability for remote access to the vision server via an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, even over a VPN.

9.   Integrated path–to-tape provides capability to move data to tape without impact of the production storage or servers, thus offloading data copies to tape for archive or compliance.

Quantum with good management tool and good throughput and direct-tape-out and with other features is really going to rock in Indian marker by giving tough fight to the EMC datadomain.