Specifications

NetApp Deduplication for FAS and V-Series Deployment and Implementation Guide
16
The PAM card has provided significant performance improvements in VMware
®
VDI environments. The
advantages provided by the NetApp PAM are further enhanced when combined with other shared block
technologies such as NetApp deduplication or FlexClone
®
.
For additional information regarding the PAM card, refer to TR-3705, NetApp and VMware VDI Best
Practices.
3.3 DEDUPLICATION STORAGE SAVINGS
This section discusses storage savings that deduplication can be expected to deliver.
Comprehensive testing of various data sets has been performed to determine typical space savings in
different environments. These results were obtained in three ways:
1. Running deduplication on various production data sets within NetApp.
2. NetApp systems deployed in the real world running deduplication.
3. NetApp and end users running a simulation tool on various data sets. See section 3.4, ―Space Savings
Estimation Tool,‖ for information about how to use this tool.
Table 4 summarizes the test results.
Table 4) Typical deduplication storage savings for various environments.
Data Types
Typical Space Savings
Backup data
95%
VMware
70%
Hyper-V
60%
File Services
35%
Sharepoint
30%
Email Archival
30%
Document Archival
25%
Source Code Archival
25%
Audio/Video Files
10%
Note that nonrepeating archival data such as image files and encrypted data is generally not considered a
good candidate for deduplication.
The results reported in Table 4 are considered realistic and typically achievable, but still conservative.
Results can be validated in an existing environment using the Space Savings Estimation Tool, as discussed
in section 3.4.
It is important to note that the space savings in the table are from deduplicating a data set one time, with the
following exception. In cases where the data is being backed up or archived over and over again, the
realized storage savings get better and better, achieving 20:1 (95%) in many instances.
DEDUPLICATION AND SPACE SAVINGS ON EXISTING DATA
A major benefit of deduplication is that it can be used to deduplicate existing data in the flexible volumes. It
is realistic to assume that there will be Snapshot copies—perhaps many—of this existing data. Here’s what
happens when you run deduplication in this case.
When you first run deduplication on this flexible volume, the storage savings will probably be rather small or
even nonexistent.
Previous Snapshot copies expire, and as they do some small savings are realized, but they too are
likely to be low.
During this period of old Snapshot copies expiring, it is fair to assume that new data is being created on
the flexible volume and that Snapshot copies are being created.