Spend Analytics

Data deduplication: Use cases and benefits

What is data deduplication?

Data deduplication is a procedure that eliminates extra or duplicate copies of data and drastically reduces the amount of storage space needed. Deduplication can be carried out as an inline procedure while the data is being written into the storage system or as a background process to remove duplicates after the data has been transferred to the disk. In data deduplication techniques, there is only one unique instance of each piece of data being conserved on storage media. Therefore, this technique closely mimics incremental backup, which only uploads the data that has changed since the last backup.

As businesses grow, managing large amounts of data becomes critical to achieving the desired level of efficiency. However, businesses face difficulties in obtaining useful and trustworthy data. Data duplication is also an issue with serious and profound financial implications for enterprises. Duplicate data not only causes problems for businesses but also results in diminishing profits due to fines and unnecessary cloud storage costs. Thanks to data deduplication, the stakeholders and the management can now better manage their data. Deduplication results in improved data quality, lower cloud storage costs, and the ability to quickly comply with data regulations.

Use cases of data deduplication

By lessening the burden of redundant data, data deduplication can assist businesses in lowering storage costs and optimising free space on the volume. Duplicate parts of a volume's dataset are only stored once, with the option of condensing them to further reduce storage requirements. Data deduplication lessens repetition and replication while preserving data integrity. Companies can employ data deduplication wherever data storage or backups are involved. Some of the typical use cases of data deduplication include:

1. General purpose file servers:

   These are file servers that fulfil a range of functions and can store any of the file/document shares that are shared by everyone in the group or are in users' personal or work-related folders. General purpose file servers are excellent for data deduplication since multiple users frequently have several versions or copies of the same document or file.

2. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI):

   Remote Desktop Services and other VDI servers provide businesses with a simple means of offering PCs to their staff. A corporation might use such technology for a variety of reasons, including application deployment, consolidation, and remote access. VDI installations are an excellent prospect for data deduplication since the virtual hard discs that power the users' remote desktops are almost identical. Furthermore, data deduplication may aid with the ‘VDI boot storm,’ which occurs when many users log in to their computers simultaneously at the start of the day.

3. Backup targets:

   These include virtualised backup applications. Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) and other backup tools are great for data deduplication due to weighty duplication between backup snapshots.

The benefits of data deduplication

With data deduplication, businesses can significantly reduce their data footprint and lower costs associated with data storage and backup. Some of the advantages of deduplication are:

1. Improved storage and backup capacity:

   Since deduplication only stores unique data, it is possible to significantly reduce the amount of space needed for storage and allot more space for backups.

2. Lowered costs:

   Better storage allocation enables businesses to make the most of their storage equipment. Since you're spending less on hardware updates, this can save your business a lot of money. It can eventually result in significant reductions in the need for both power and physical space, creating a more affordable data centre environment.

3. Network optimisation:

   Data deduplication, when done locally, optimises storage without transmitting data over a network. The bandwidth required to maintain network speed, performance, and dependability is thus made available.

4. Better data recovery:

   Data deduplication speeds up backup recovery by removing redundant data from the mix. It reduces downtime and assists in maintaining the viability of business continuity strategies.

For organisations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed on organisational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like a living organism, will be imperative for business excellence going forward. A comprehensive, yet modular suite of services is doing exactly that. Equipping organisations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organisations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.

How can Infosys BPM help?

Our data deduplication services incorporate enterprise-grade AI to provide strategic insights into your company's data management. Our intelligence, in conjunction with our data cleansing technology, can assist you in overcoming business challenges and maintaining your company's revenue and profitability.

Our deduplication framework includes the following solutions:

1. Automated data ingestion with pre-built connectors and adaptors that allow seamless integration without any changes to internal systems
2. External data sources along with AI to automate supplier and product harmonisation
3. AI-enabled data cleansing, quality checks, transformation, and deduplication