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Dedupe, dedupe, dedupe dedupe dedupe: Dell drops in ROBO backup appliance
Smaller, slower box gets cloud backend tier, vow of 'up to 55:1' rate
Dell has added a low-end data protection appliance to infiltrate remote and branch offices and smaller enterprises.
The DP4400 comes just over a year after an Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) quartet was announced: the DP5300, 5800, 8300, and 8800.
The DP4400 comes in a 2U box and is powered by PowerEdge 14G servers. The other DP products come in 40U racks, which scale up by using disk expansion enclosures – 60-drive x 5U ones for example.
Dell EMC IDPA DP4400
PowerEdge 14G servers arrived in July 2017, a couple of months after the DP5300 to DP8800 were announced in May 2017. They'll probably get a PowerEdge 14G server upgrade at some stage.
These IDPA systems are turnkey appliances and integrate protection storage, servers and software, search and analytics with – except for the (then entry-level) DP5300 – a cloud back-end tier. Effectively, they wrap extra functions around a Data Domain deduping backup software core.
The DP4400 is smaller than the DP5300, but gets a cloud tier. The five IDPA appliances have these basic specs:
| DP4400 | DP5300 | DP5800 | DP8300 | DP8800 | |
| Ingest Rate | 9TB/hr | 24TB/hr | 32TB/hr | 41TB/hr | 68TB/hr |
| Logical Capacity | 240 TB - 4.8PB | 340TB - 6.5PB | 960TB - 14.4PB | 1.9 - 36PB | 6.2-50PB |
| w/Cloud Tiering | 14.4PB | n/a | 14.4-43.2PB | 36-108PB | 31-150PB |
| Usable Capacity | 24-96TB | 34-130TB | 96-288TB | 192-720TB | 624TB-1PB |
| w/Cloud Tiering | 288TB | n/a | to 864TB | to 2.16PB | to 3PB |
The DP4400 has a noticeably lower ingest rate (9TB/hour) than the DP5300 (24TB/hour).
It can deliver backup, replication, deduplication, access to data for test and dev, cloud disaster recovery and long-term retention. On that basis, Dell compared the DP4400 to these other systems:
- Vertias NetBackup 5240/5330
- Rubrik Cloud Data Management Appliances: r6304, r6404, r6408, r6410 and r528
- Cohesity DataPlatform
- Commvault HyperScale Appliance
It positioned the DP4400 as suitable for ROBO and mid-sized enterprises, but the DP5300 and DP5800 are positioned for mid-sized enterprises as well – so perhaps it's better to consider the DP4400 as a smaller enterprise system.
It also said it would offer an "Up to 55:1 Data Protection Deduplication Guarantee", which requires customer signature and purchase of a ProSupport, ProSupport Plus or Mission Critical maintenance agreement.
If you'd like a DP4400 spec sheet, you can grab one here (PDF). The appliance is available through Dell EMC and authorised channel partners, starting at under $80,000. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
