Although disk systems are cheaper than ever before, the use of disk in backup systems, including VTLs, has been very limited due to its cost. However, thousands of deduplication-based disk systems have now been deployed, and customers the world over are seeing that they can indeed take the place of tape for onsite backup storage. While many companies still copy these backups to tape for offsite storage, some companies have figured out ways to either stop shipping tapes or to stop using them altogether. This session will explore all of these possiblities.

This session will explore and describe:

• The difference between disk staging and disk backups
• What disk staging and disk backups bring to the table
• What is deduplication, how real is it, and do you need it?
• What kind of deduplication ratios can you expect?
• How important are the following to your decision?
• Inline vs post process
• Hashing, Delta differentials, and other approaches
• Forward vs reverse referencing
• Source vs target deduplication
• Does deduplication affect restores?
• What and how should I test?