Tag Archives: blackbird

Say Hello to Blackbird !

Published September 6, 2010 | by Jaspreet | in data deduplication, Druva inSync
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With inSync v4.0 going live last week, Druva showcased the new Blackbird storage engine which introduces a new concept called – “Application Aware Data Deduplication”. This new engine although currently only available in inSync, will form the core of all future product offerings.

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

InSync v4 (Blackbird) Beta – Registration Open

Published July 8, 2010 | by Jaspreet | in Druva inSync, News & Events
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insync-4-beta

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.

Introducing The Blackbird Storage Engine

Published March 15, 2010 | by Jaspreet | in Druva inSync, Technology & Innovation
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Today inSync team released the first internal alpha build of all new blackbird engine, which is going to be featured in inSync v4.0

Druva BlackBird

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 !