NetApp Inc. has added support for its free data deduplication utility to its V-Series gateways, which are diskless filer heads that can make another vendor's disk array look like a NetApp box. Some of the third-party disk array vendors the V-Series can front are EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, 3PAR and Fujitsu.

While fronting a Tier 1 disk array with a data deduplication box doesn't seem like a mainstream use case, about 60% of the 2,500 NetApp customers who have turned on data dedupe use it for primary storage, said Chris Cummings, NetApp senior director of data protection solutions. While there might be performance hit for data deduplication, NetApp uses a post-process approach that consolidates data processing into off hours.

While it's still not likely to be used with a new 3PAR InServ or EMC Symmetrix, "If you have a lot of other legacy storage systems or more conventional storage systems, you can use V-Series with dedupe to repurpose them," said Forrester Research analyst Stephanie Balaouras.

"This won't be a flagship piece of our portfolio -- just another option for customers," Cummings admitted.

NetApp still has several key items on its data deduplication roadmap, including support for its virtual tape libraries (VTL), deduping across FlexVols to improve efficiency in larger systems, a GUI interface and data dedupe monitoring, Cummings said.

NetApp's data deduplication is currently running on his company's clustered FAS3020 filer, said Jim Krochmal, manager of IT for Polysius, a designer and installer of cement plants and equipment. The company dedupes CIFS volumes, including Office documents, CAD designs and user home directories.