Specifications

NetApp Deduplication for FAS and V-Series Deployment and Implementation Guide
4
1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF DEDUPLICATION
This section provides an overview of how deduplication works for FAS and V-Series systems.
Notes:
1. Whenever references are made to deduplication for FAS in this document, the reader should assume
that the same information also applies to V-Series systems, unless otherwise noted.
2. NetApp deduplication for VTL is not covered within this technical report and is beyond the scope of this
document.
1.1 HOW DEDUPLICATION FOR FAS WORKS
Part of NetApp’s storage efficiency offerings, NetApp deduplication for FAS provides block-level
deduplication within the entire flexible volume on NetApp storage systems. Beginning with Data ONTAP
®
7.3, V-Series also supports deduplication. NetApp V-Series is designed to be used as a gateway system
that sits in front of third-party storage, allowing NetApp storage efficiency and other features to be used on
third-party storage.
Figure 1 shows how NetApp deduplication for FAS works at the highest level.
Figure 1) How NetApp deduplication for FAS works.
Essentially, deduplication stores only unique blocks in the flexible volume and creates a small amount of
additional metadata in the process. Notable features of deduplication include:
It works with a high degree of granularity; that is, at the 4KB block level.
It operates on the active file system of the flexible volume. Any block referenced by a Snapshot
™
copy
is not made ―available‖ until the Snapshot copy is deleted.
It’s a background process that can be configured to run automatically, or it can be scheduled, or run
manually through the command line interface (CLI).
It’s application transparent, and therefore it can be used for deduplication of data originating from any
application using the NetApp system.
It’s enabled and managed using a simple CLI only at this time.
It can be enabled on and can deduplicate blocks on flexible volumes with new and existing data.