How Dell EMC's Data Domain DD860 Protects the Integrity of Your Data

To get the edge on the competition or find their niche, companies claim the ‘industry-leading’ tag, but what means qualifies an ‘industry-leader’? It varies throughout each sector of the network hardware industry and your business network. Industry leaders in the Security space are put up against different qualifications than those of Servers.

Today, we are highlighting how we’ve seen Dell EMC’s Data Domain lead the industry in Storage Protection. Specifically looking at the Data Domain DD860, we’ll dive into how it can play a role in delivering data protection, disaster recovery, scalability, cloud-enablement, and more to your network storage protection strategy. Let’s take a look at Dell EMC’s Data Domain DD860.

Data Domain Overview

Dell EMC Data Domain’s Stream-Informed Segment Layout (SISL) and Boost technologies result in backup speeds up to 68 TB/hr. With backups and archives as your last resort for storage, inline data verification, continuous fault detection, and self-healing, create the architectural design to prove its deserving place at the top of the industry. When defending against data integrity issues, Data Domain variable-length segmentation provides the highest deduplication rates possible.

Here at PivIT, we know the goal is to become more efficient in the network and business, and higher deduplication rates result in less storage required, decreasing your data protection footprint. The footprint is decreased through less infrastructure to manage and WAN bandwidth used for replication. Not only are CapEx and OpEx reduced, but the complexity in your environment decreases while seeing higher effective scalability. Get in touch with a storage protection specialist here at PivIT to chat about decreasing your protection footprint and create a strategy to lower your CapEx on your data storage security.

Scalability matters most when you want easier management and data center floor space decreased. Data Domain systems scale up to manage 3 PB of usable capacity with a single system. To achieve higher scalability and performance, Data Domain system technology allows you to upgrade the controller as needed, therefore not only do you protect your data but also your investment. Data Domain’s design integrates through connecting via Fibre Channel or Ethernet. Below, we’ll look more into how you can see the Data Domain DD860 fit into your storage security.

Your Network with the DD800 Series

DellEMC Data Domain deduplication storage system has disk backup, disaster recovery, and remote office data protection with high-speed, inline deduplication. Backup data can be reduced in size by an average of 10-30 X, so disk backup storage is cost-effective for onsite retention and highly efficient for network-based replication to disaster recovery sites. The reduction in size is due to the deduplication system's key feature of eliminating excessive copies of data. The Data Domain DD800 series is qualified with all leading enterprise backup software and archiving applications, which easily integrates into your existing storage infrastructure without change for either data center or distributed office data protection.

The Data Domain DD860 Deduplication Storage System has fast, inline deduplication up to 5.1 TB/hr of throughput. This throughput provides up to 7.1PB of deduplication storage. The Dell EMC Data Domain's data architecture provides continuous recovery verification and detection. The DD860 protects against data integrity issues during the initial backup and throughout of the data lifecycle. Unlike any other enterprise array or file system, the DD860 system ensures recoverability is verified and then continuously re-verified.

The Dell EMC Data Domain system, overall, is simple to install and manage. Connect an appliance to your backup server as either a file server via Ethernet or as a virtual tape library (VTL) via Fiber Channel. As mentioned above, the Dell EMC Data Domain Boost (for use with Symantec OpenStorage) is also supported.

Hardware Options For You

Are you convinced the Data Domain DD860 is the right storage protection for your network? No? Great! Let's explore some options for you, your budget, and your server needs.

Hardware Components

System Features

Storage Capacity

Power Supply Units

The DD860 has two power supply units: the upper unit (number 1) and the lower unit (number 2). Each power unit has an LED that glows green when the unit is functioning correctly. If the unit loses AC power then the LED glows amber and blinks amber if failing. Although, if the LED is dark then the unit has no power, but when the system is turned off and still plugged into a power unit the LED flashes green.

Hardware Interfaces

As mentioned, the DD860 connects an appliance to your backup server as either a file server via Ethernet or as a virtual tape library (VTL) via Fiber Channel. The hardware interfaces enable you to connect through a serial console, monitor, and keyboard, or through the Ethernet connection port. The pair of Ethernet interfaces (both 1000 Base-T Gigabit) is for data transfer to the Data Domain system or administrative access. There is a single 10/100 Base-T Ethernet port to the right of the pair that is used for system maintenance only. The four USB ports, keyboard port, mouse port, VGA port, and serial port are not used during normal operation, though may be used during system servicing. 

Each Ethernet connection has two LEDs, one on each side of the connector. The left LED is the Link/Activity LED. When it is dark, the port has no live connection. It glows green when a link is established and flashes green with transmit/receive traffic. The right LED is the Speed LED. It indicates 1 Gbps when amber, 100 Mbps when green, and 10 Mbps when off.

PCI Cards and Slot Assignments

All DD640, DD670, and DD860 systems have one NVRAM card.  The DD860 and DD890 systems have two fixed SAS cards. The DD860 Archiver system has 3 fixed SAS cards. Each SAS HBA port accepts a mini SAS connector.

VTL and Ethernet Card Options

 DD860 systems have three slots available for optional Ethernet NIC and VTL HBA cards. The DD860 Archiver option has two slots available for optional Ethernet NIC.  The optional VTL feature requires at least one VTL HBA card. Depending on your needs, you can leave these slots empty or install up to three Ethernet cards, up to two VTL cards, or any combination of Ethernet cards and up to two VTL cards. The following are the available Ethernet NIC cards mentioned above:

• Dual-port copper 1Gb (1000 Base) Ethernet PCIe NIC with RJ-45 connectors (DD670 system only)
• Quad-port copper 1Gb (1000 Base) Ethernet PCIe NIC with RJ-45 connectors
• Dual-port optical 1Gb (1000 Base-SX) multi-mode fiber Ethernet PCIe NIC with LC connectors
• Dual-port copper 10 Gb Ethernet PCIe NIC with SFP+ connectors
• Dual-port optical 10 Gb Ethernet PCIe NIC with LC connectors 

Technical Specs

Storage & Storage Controller Specs

Hard Drive

Networking

Other Specifications

Whichever industry you are in—health care, financial technology, energy, education, transportation, manufacturing, etc—data is becoming bigger and more imperative to safeguard. Finding the right solution to protect your storage data is critical in today's environment. Dell EMC's Data Domain platform is one of the industry's leading ways to remain secure. Contact PivIT today to learn more about the Data Domain DD860 and how it can play its secure role in your data storage network.