Nexsan, FalconStor Join Forces On Newest Backup Appliance

Nexsan's new DeDupe SG 2.0, together with FalconStor's File-interface Deduplication System (FDS) 2.0, combines increased availability, performance, and deduplication features with Nexsan's AutoMAID power reduction technology, said Bob Woolery, senior vice president of marketing for the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based storage vendor.

Nexsan and FalconStor combined to introduce the original Nexsan DeDupe SG in August.

The two are targeting deduplication market leader Data Domain, which storage kingpin EMC acquired in July.

FDS 2.0 provides much of the muscle behind the new Nexsan DeDupe SG 2.0, said Mike DiMeglio, product marketing manager for Melville, NY-based FalconStor.

For instance, FDS 2.0 now integrates Symantec's Open Storage Technology (OST) which takes all the overhead out of the backup process. With OST, Symantec's NetBackup data protection software controls the backup process directly to send only raw data between devices as a way to boost backup performance, especially when 10-Gb Ethernet is used, DiMeglio said.

"This is particularly important to the Symantec partner channel," he said.

FDS 2.0 also features the ability to receive replicated data from up to 150 remote sources, compared to only 32 sources in the earlier version, DiMeglio said.

"With our global deduplication technology, we only replicate unique data from each site," he said. "This also provides centralized management of all 150 remote sites with real-time monitoring."

With FDS 2.0, FalconStor is also enhancing data security via Active Director and NT Access Control List (ACL), DiMeglio said.

Also new with FDS 2.0 is redundancy features to ensure that the backup and dedupe process is not interrupted by a disk issue.

Nexsan, for its part, is adding FDS 2.0 to its existing storage appliance line, and is also introducing it on a new appliance, the DD SG-72, which increases the maximum raw backup capacity to 72 TB which, because of FDS 2.0 can back up as much as 1.4 petabytes of original data, Woolery said.

Nexsan is also making 10-Gb Ethernet an option for its storage arrays, Woolery said.

Greg Knieriemen, vice president of marketing at Chi Corp., a Cleveland-based solution provider and partner to both Nexsan and FalconStor, said that he likes the original Nexsan DeDupe SG, and is impressed with several of the features of the new version.

For instance, Knieriemen said that including Symantec's OST feature is huge. "The number of customers using Symantec's software for backing up data is rapidly growing," he said. "We've seen a lot of customers adopt it. It really speeds up backups."

The ability to replicate from up to 150 remote sites is also important for customers with a large number of remote offices, such as retail companies which may have 100 or more stores across the country, Knieriemen said.

It's also important that Nexsan offers a 10-Gb Ethernet option with the DeDupe SG 2.0, Knieriemen said.

"With any backup solution today for writing to disk, there's a customer expectation for 10-Gb Ethernet," he said. "It's good to see Nexsan jumping in front of this. I'm not saying all customers are adopting 10-Gb Ethernet. But they want to have the technology in place for when they are ready to adopt it."

The Nexsan DeDupe SG 2.0 is expected to be available in late February through Nexsan's solution provider channel. Pricing has yet to be determined.

FalconStor's FDS 2.0 will be available as a stand-alone software application through FalconStor's indirect sales channel.