FalconStor Updates Deduplication Offering

Published: January 26, 2010

by Alex Woodie

FalconStor Software last week announced version 2 of its File-interface Deduplication System (FDS), a post-processing de-duplication software product that works on NFS and CIFS data stores. The new release brings performance enhancements and new management features and policies that will make the product easier to use in enterprise environments.

FalconStor launched FDS last year to augment the existing data de-duplication features found in its IPStor software, which is used in its own virtual tape library (VTL) offerings, as well as the VTL offerings of FalconStor's OEM partners. By de-duplicating the data arriving over the network file share (NFS) or common Internet file system (CIFS) protocols, FDS has the capability to work with a much wider array of backup and archiving products, not just those accepting data from the tape-emulation interfaces used by VTLs.

One of the key features in FDS 2.0 is support for Symantec's OpenStorage (OST) storage format. Supporting this format gives users of Symantec backup products, such as NetBackup and BackupExec, much more control over the backend data store. It also provides a performance boost: FalconStor says using OST allows backups to progress at the rate of 5.5 terabytes per hour, across two 10 gigabit network links. The company is also touting an increased "fan-in" ratio of 150-to-1, which it says widens the support and scope of customers' de-duplication efforts.

While FDS is focused on LAN-based backups over NAS, the software includes replication functionality for sending de-duped backups across a WAN for disaster recovery (DR) purposes. With FDS version 2.0, the company has bolstered the replication dashboard to provide more real-time monitoring capabilities. It also delivered folder-level replication support, which is more granular than the first release.

FDS 2.0 will be available at the end of February. For more information, visit www.falconstor.com.

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