Dell last week joined the data deduplication market, promising products that use software from EMC and Quantum. The company will develop a single architecture from deduplication technology from EMC and Quantum and will make it available on its PowerVault, EqualLogic and Dell/EMC storage products. TierDisk will be the new name for the company's triumvirate of products. Dell expects to ship systems with deduplication capability in early 2009.

The company contends that this is not its first foray into deduplication. Dell points to relationships with CommVault Simpana software for the DL2000, which includes deduplication. It also partners with Amamar and Exagrid systems.

The latest deduplication product from Dell is expected to provide links between Dell storage arrays and those from Quantum and EMC.

Separately, NetApp announced deduplication capability for its NetApp Virtual Tape Library (VTL) system. The company has previously supported deduplication of primary data on its files.

NetApp VTL deduplication is designed for backup environments and is a native component of its VTL systems software. The company is claiming that its deduplication technology will result in a 50% reduction in tape media costs and tape libraries and offers 10 times faster restoration from backup applications. NetApp deduplication is available to new and existing customers at no additional charge.

According to researcher The 451 Group, deduplication projects will exceed $1 billion in revenue next year.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW.