Deduplication

Understanding Deduplication in Data Backup

What is Deduplication?

Deduplication is a data compression technique used to eliminate duplicate copies of repeating data. Deduplication ensures that only unique instances of data are stored, significantly reducing the amount of storage space needed.

XoperoONE Deduplication

XoperoONE employs block-level deduplication, a sophisticated method that identifies and removes duplicate blocks within and across files. When a backup is performed, the deduplication process scans the data for duplicate blocks. Instead of storing multiple copies of the same block, deduplication stores a single instance and replaces subsequent copies with a reference to the original block.

How Deduplication is Performed in XoperoONE?

In XoperoONE, deduplication is performed at the source, meaning it begins on the client side (agent) before any data is transmitted to the storage repository. This global source-side deduplication method ensures that redundant data is eliminated early in the process. The backup agent first scans the data for duplicate blocks. To do this efficiently, the agent retrieves a deduplication table from the storage repository, which contains information about previously stored data blocks. By comparing the new data against this table, the agent can identify duplicates and avoid transmitting them. This early elimination of redundant data significantly reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent over the network.

Bandwidth and Time Efficiency

A primary advantage of source-side deduplication in XoperoONE is the considerable savings in network bandwidth and the reduction in backup execution time. By comparing and eliminating duplicates before data transmission, only unique data blocks are sent to the storage repository. This approach conserves bandwidth, making it ideal for environments with limited network capacity or high data transfer costs.

Benefits of Deduplication

Deduplication offers significant advantages in data backup. By eliminating duplicate data blocks, it drastically reduces storage requirements, sometimes by as much as 50% to 90%, depending on the data type and redundancy level. This leads to substantial cost savings in physical storage devices, data center space, and energy consumption.

Configuring Deduplication in XoperoONE

To configure deduplication for your backup plan, you need to enable deduplication in the advanced settings

Navigate to the advanced settings section and toggle the deduplication switch to the "on" position.

When configuring deduplication plans together with encryption, it is advisable to use the same encryption key for all backup plans within the same storage.

Considerations with Encryption

While deduplication offers substantial benefits, its interaction with encryption presents some challenges. Specifically, if different encryption keys are used for different backup plans targeting the same storage repository, deduplication becomes less effective. Encryption significantly alters the data blocks, making it difficult for the deduplication process to identify and eliminate duplicates. Consequently, it is advisable to use the same encryption key for all backup plans within the same storage. This is because encryption changes even identical data blocks so significantly that duplicates are not recognized. This practice ensures that the deduplication process can effectively recognize and remove redundant data, leading to optimal storage savings and enhanced data management.

Cleanup of deduplication data