This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides best practice guidance for planning, installing, configuring, and employing the IBM TS7600 ProtecTIER® family of products. It provides the latest best practices for the practical application of ProtecTIER Software Version 3.4. This latest release introduces the new ProtecTIER Enterprise Edition TS7650G DD6 model high performance server. This book also includes information about the revolutionary and patented IBM HyperFactor® deduplication engine, along with other data storage efficiency techniques, such as compression and defragmentation.

The IBM System Storage® TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway and the IBM System Storage TS7620 ProtecTIER Deduplication Appliance Express are disk-based data storage systems: The Virtual Tape Library (VTL) interface is the foundation of ProtecTIER and emulates traditional automated tape libraries.

For your existing ProtecTIER solution, this guide provides best practices and suggestions to boost the performance and the effectiveness of data deduplication with regards to your application platforms for your VTL and FSI (systems prior to version 3.4).

When you build a ProtecTIER data deduplication environment, this guide can help IT architects and solution designers plan for the best option and scenario for data deduplication for their environments. This book can help you optimize your deduplication ratio, while reducing the hardware, power and cooling, and management costs.

This Redbooks publication provides expertise that was gained from an IBM ProtecTIER System Client Technical Specialist (CTS), Development, and Quality Assurance teams.

This planning should be done by the Sales Representative or IBM Business Partner, with the help of an IBM System CTS or IBM Solution Architect.

Part 1. General best practices

Chapter 1. IBM ProtecTIER basics

Chapter 2. Deduplication considerations

Chapter 3. Networking essentials

Chapter 4. Virtual Tape Library guidelines

Chapter 5. ProtecTIER File System Interface: General introduction

Chapter 6. Host attachment considerations for Virtual Tape Library

Part 2. Back-end storage subsystems

Chapter 7. Back-end storage overview

Chapter 8. IBM FlashSystem 900 with System Storage TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway

Chapter 9. IBM Storwize Family and SAN Volume Controller

Chapter 10. IBM XIV Storage System

Chapter 11. IBM System Storage DS8000

Chapter 12. Backup management introduction

Chapter 13. IBM Spectrum Protect

Chapter 14. Symantec NetBackup and BackupExec

Chapter 15. EMC NetWorker

Chapter 16. HP Data Protector

Chapter 17. IBM i and Backup, Recovery, and Media Services

Chapter 18. Commvault

Chapter 19. Veeam FSI-CIFS

Part 3. Application considerations

Chapter 20. Application considerations and data types

Part 4. Replication and disaster recovery

Chapter 21. ProtecTIER replication

Chapter 22. Disaster recovery deployment with backup applications

Part 5. Appendixes

Appendix A. Hints and tips

Appendix B. ProtecTIER compatibility

Appendix C. ProtecTIER parsers

Appendix D. Managing cartridge sizes with ProtecTIER