The idea of “app-aware deduplication” emerged from the fact that complex applications like MS Outlook or Exchange need much more intelligent deduplicate removal than simple block based approach.

Each data block in PST is of fixed size and usually contains a header and a footer (ref: libpst ) which makes it impossible for simple dedupe approaches to identify block boundaries and hence restricting deduplication accuracy to just 30-40%.

Application aware data deduplication depends upon APIs exposed by the application to understand the construct of on-disk data and deduplicate at the logical-block or message level. This guarantees 100% deduplication accuracy and faster processing of data.

Another interesting change is shift from PostgreSQL database to no-SQL Oracle embedded database. This small (less than 1MB in size) embedded database removes the heavy “SQL” and networking layer between the server and database, hence greatly improving performance and scalability. The new engine can now support 16TB of dedupe data and about 200 parallel backups.

In a nutshell, the Blackbird engine will have the following features -

1. App-Aware deduplication
2. Light-weight and highly scalable
3. Simple to install and zero-maintenance
4. Near-CDP – timeline/event based near-continuous backups
5. Search enabled restores
6. Replication (to be showcased soon

InSync v4.0
InSync v4 is definitely a new benchmark for laptop backup. I am extremely confident that if anyone tries this solution will never buy anything else for laptop backup. With new storage, redesigned WAN Optimization and dashboard, its clearly leaps and bounds ahead of what’s available in the market.

More about new features – http://www.druva.com/insync/version-4-0
Download inSync v4 – http://www.druva.com/download/insync

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As a base, they took a thinner 0.6mm Aluminium sheet. But this time, rather than trying the usual impact analysis they create a real life scenario. They created a Chicken Gun – a gun capable of firing a 1kg skinned chicken at 260 mph towards an Aluminium target.

No surprises, the results of this testing were completely unexpected. The chicken actually tore apart the Aluminium foil like a paper. The result was a new material which combined both glass-fiber and Aluminium.

Honestly has been an eye opener for me !

Testing InSync isn’t easy, unlike server backup you have to the data is much more dispersed and diverse, coming from 1000 different sources over different networks.  This time for v4.0 testing, we have decided to follow the Chicken Gun Theory. We are in the process of building three new test suites for -

1. Parallel Stress
2. Fatigue
3. Volume of Data
4. Different Networks

To simulate parallel testing we have leased over 200+ small servers from a grid provider for next few months. Each of these servers will simulate multiple users to detect bottlenecks in parallel testing. Hopefully this would also be useful for testing scalability of the storage engine. For example we recently discovered that enabling native compression in the embedded database puts some marginal load on abundantly available CPU power, but reduces critical disk I/O by 30% !

Sometimes we have seen issues surfacing from prolonged usage when server is working relentlessly for months. To test this, a small set of these servers will be kept in constant “synchronizing” state for weeks. This fatigue testing should be able to test various corner cases causing memory leaks, open file handlers, de-fragmentation etc.

And to test the effect of different networks, we would be using different proxies which will induce latency and network drops in the network. This should help us understand the “remote” backup better. This actually helped us understand a recent customer case, where backup was suffering because of VPN time-outs.

I am sure, this would help us make your laptop backup much more robust … without sacrificing any chickens  (except for the launch parties)

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After a month long limited “technology preview”, Druva inSync v4 beta will now be available to all partners, customers and new registrations starting July 15th.

InSync v4.0 codenamed after the Lockheed reconnaissance aircraft -SR71 Blackbird, will showcase 4 super stunning features -

1. App-Aware Dedupe
2. New Blackbird Storage Engine
3. New Redesigned Octopus WAN Optimization Engine
4. Web 2.0 Management Console & Interactive Dashboard

First of its kind, the app-aware dedupe engine understands the data structure for applications (like Outlook & MS Office), and deduplicates data at message or logical block level. This guarantees 100% dedupe accuracy, and a significant improvement in bandwidth/storage utilization.

The new (Blackbird) storage engine now utilizes a much advanced embedded database from Oracle instead of SQL database. Less than 1MB in size, the new database simplifies installation and adds raw rocket power to the dedupe engine. The new storage architecture will support 16TB of dedupe storage with 200+ parallel connections.

The new redesigned Octopus WAN Optimization engine is designed to optimally utilize both high speed networks and weakest of WAN links. The new auto-resume feature ensures that a large file is resumed after a network interruption.

A big fan of usability, the new web console is my favourite. It’s stunningly attractive and I personally love the dashboard. The new dashboard shows some interesting statistics like data composition of backup, user activity graphs, storage growth so on.

Details & Registration
Details about the new release and registration information is given here – http://www.druva.com/insync/version-4-0-beta
Please sign-up and someone from the beta program will contact you soon.

Final Release
The final release is expected to be around Aug 10th 2010. But the dates are not finalized yet and will mostly depend on how well is the beta is accepted.

Feedback
We would soon dedicate a thread in the forums for beta discussions. Please feel free to comment here on the blog or participate in the forums. This would surely help us design your backup better.

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What I find really interesting is that Apple managed to build a $50 billion company just from 30 products against over 300 products from Microsoft. Apple has learned to monetize every single phase of the product: the hardware, the apps, the e-books, the music, the movies, the peripherals, the TV shows and soon the advertising, all while making over $600 off of each iPhone.  

Meanwhile, MS thought it would do great selling $8 to $15 WinMo licenses. That might have worked if they had cornered at least 50% of the market but with less than 10%, WinMo will never be more than chicken feed with that strategy.

It’s clearly the laser sharp focus and emphasis to details what worked for Apple. Sharing an interesting quote from one of the emails I exchanged with Subinder some weeks ago  -

(Planing for this year) ……. The best analogy I can give you is a laser beam. A laser is a million-times more powerful than ordinary light of the same wattage. Secret – the beam is tightly aligned in one direction (alignment of functions), and each photon is in the same phase (the little things). That is the magic we need. You have the first steps by laying out a vision. We will need to ensure all big investments as well as little things are aligned to the BIG VISION. The “strategic fit” becomes a filter for every action, message, priority for the team.

- Subinder Khurana, Advisor and Mentor, Druva Software

For the past two years, we have kept our focus on “laptop backup”, and I think we did deliver a good product. Now the million dollar question in front of us is to dig this well deeper or find another well  I am sure, I have enough to learn from this story to make a decision now.

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Closing series-A investment with Sequoia was probably a good enough reason to hold the first “All Hands” meeting. Everyone from all 5 offices travelled to work 1 week from the  Pune (India) office. And it was great fun.

To begin with, the Iceland volcano made sure everyone flying from Europe and the east coast had to reschedule their flights. And soon after Borja and George boarded flights, Madrid and Istanbul were closed as well. And just before the event I broke my laptop

Finally when everybody arrived, it was a great cultural mix. The office was no less than the Heathrow airport.

It was mostly work and brainstorming sessions in the mornings and some serious fun in the evenings. We discussed pretty much everything from next big product feature to recipe for Garlic Naan. The week concluded with spending the weekend at a nearby forest resort.

Take away for me – There is no substitute for meeting in person.

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Sequoia needs no introduction, they call themselves “service providers to entrepreneurs” and are the same guys behind Apple, Google and Cisco. And IAN is one of the most respected angel body in India. Shailendra Singh from Sequoia will join the board.

Although, Druva currently is highly profitable and on a steep growth trajectory, this new investment will help us build a solid engineering team and expand our marketing reach.

It feels like getting two new wings and a turbo boost for the engine. And I can see the runway ahead.

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And what I saw totally changed my perception of  ”fast” and “small”. Forever.

If you have missed my earlier posts, Blackbird (name inspired from the SR71-Blackbird) is a new storage engine for inSync and Phoenix which will introduce Invent “Application Aware Data Deduplication” and get rid of any dependency on a SQL database.

Getting rid of SQL database shrinks the Blackbird core to only about 2 MB against current 32MB. It also avoids the overhead of TCP connects to SQL DB and SQL query optimizer, making it blazingly fast and light weight.

Application aware deduplication makes sure data deduplication happens at the logical level. For example, rather than treating a PST file like a stream of blocks, we would understand and deduplicate message by message. This guarantee faster processing and 100% deduplication accuracy.

Quickly highlighting the features from today’s presentation -

1. Fast - Amazing speed.
2. Light-weight - Multi-threaded. No SQL Database.
3. Scalable – High level of fault tolerance against data corruptions in the store.
4. Small - InSync v4.0 will probably shrink to just 12MB !!
5. Simple – No DB required for installation !

The public beta for InSync v4.0 is expected by end of April. I am extremely eager to showcase this engineering marvel.

Will follow with more posts and some screenshots !

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We are pleased to launch the new self-service support portal for all our customers – http://support.druva.com/

The all new portal should be a good help to both the customers and the support team. It includes/improves the following features -

1. Simple to use  - I love this one the most
2. Email Integration  - emails automatically open or respond to existing tickets
3. Easy and automated escalation of tickets
4. Self managed account summary and list of owned product licenses
5. Customers can view history or license/support renewals
6. Integrated Knowledge Base and Troubleshooter (coming up soon)

All the existing customer accounts have been migrated to the new portal and will receive an email notification soon. I am really hopeful that this should make the post-sales experience even better.

The team spent about 3 months finalizing and launching the portal, and I guess I should request Vinu (who heads support) to write a small post about the journey

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So, to make the brand recall simpler, we spent some good time, effort and money to removed the duplicate “A”.

The website has already been migrated (see www.druva.com)and now has a new cool logo as well. All the email addresses will be carried forward as-they-are to the new domain, and older email addresses will still be valid. Request you to make a change in your address book as well.

We soon will be migrating other sub-domains (blog, kb, forums etc.). The changes may take some time, and request you to be patient.

If you are a customer or listed somewhere in our salesforce.com, an email is probably already waiting in your Inbox guiding you through changes

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First of all sorry for not updating this blog regularly, hopefully we soon will have a great news to break on the blog

Milind and myself were killing some free time in a Chinese market in New Delhi, and we suddenly noticed Kingston USB flash drives with 256GB capacity costing about $30. We checked everything and it looked all real

I quickly googled and saw the same product on Kingston website. Well, I started to bargain and put my skills to test. And soon the poor guy was ready to sell it for $20 And just before I was about to pay, as a last (shameless) bargain tactic, I told to the guy “Well I am not too pleased, do you have something with bigger capacity” and holy shit, the next moment he handed over a 500GB Kingston Flash Drive. And now this was something, not even on the website !

Milind asked me, “Do you really want this ? I mean what will you use it for ?” and I said, well its a good toy for 20 bucks. And finally both of got ourselves, 2 flash drives of 500GB each

As soon I got to the flight, I started stress testing it … and surprisingly it still works !!

Shameless Geek Thought: And now I am thinking, if disks get bigger and bigger like this, backing them up would almost impossible. File-systems and hardware vendors surely need to come up with something intelligent (possibly like NTFS change log)  to avoid scanning the device for changes. Surprisingly, such interfaces are still not present in Linux (ext*) and Solaris (JFS).

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