You will soon hear a lot about a new concept ESG has coined (if you haven't already).  It's called 3DR. Yes, it's another acronym, but this one makes a lot of sense. It's not just hype. I believe all organizations – big and small – should be thinking in these terms going forward.

3DR requires organizations to think of data in two basic terms: primary and protected. How the data is protected and what is done to it during the DPLM process (or "protection continuum") is up to you. Data moves, or is copied, from the "Primary" store to the "Protected" store via traditional backup and recovery software or emerging methods enabled by Intelligent Information Management (IIM) tools.

First, let me say I don't have an obsessive personality ... really. But I can't seem to go a day without talking about data de-duplication with somebody. I've even ranted to my husband, who isn't even in the data storage industry, about it (as if he cares). Data de-duplication is exciting because, as I've said before, it has massive, immediate real-world implications for users.

In fact, in my 10+ years in the industry, I have never seen a new technology get as much attention -- and, importantly, be incorporated into vendor product lines -- as quickly as data de-duplication. Its adoption is on an accelerated, or shortened, "technology adoption life-cycle" curve. There are no real technology "laggards" or "traditionalists." Even the disk array vendors see the writing on the wall, and are working feverishly to roll out data de-duplication capabilities this year. And the "pragmatists" are right on the heels of the early adopters; there's no real chasm between the two.

A recent discussion with a vendor about the naming of an upcoming product release made me question: What's in a name? More importantly, how do you name a company/product for optimal -- and lasting -- market impact?

Well, there are a number of options: You could go the subtle route, but sometimes subtle is, well, just too unobtrusive to grab hold (e.g., NSI Software, which was recently renamed after its flagship product "Double-Take").

You can go with something clever (e.g., Sepaton spelled backwards is "no tapes"). You can even name your product or company after a pizza place or a child's imaginary friend (remember Z-force and Yotta Yotta?). Sometimes these strategies work (e.g., Sepaton); sometimes they don't (e.g., Z-force and Yotta Yotta).

So, what's the deal with all of the storage awards? There are the "best practices" awards, the "storage" awards, the "quality" awards, the "MVP" awards, etc. Is there any value in having so many awards? And, more, importantly, how much weight should, you, the end-users, place on the results?

These are questions I've been wrestling with for years -- well before my days at ESG. The simple truth is that there is value in industry awards, but you've generally got to dig deep -- beyond the hype and gloss -- to find it.

Of course, award programs that are based on first-hand product experience ("best practices" are a particularly good example) are generally more valuable than award programs that are run by panels of judges comprised of editors, vendors, and analysts (unless, of course, the judges have first-hand experience with the products). But even these types of awards speak volumes about industry trends -- and about the overall health of the industry. In fact, industry awards are generally reflective of end-user interest in -- and adoption of -- new technologies, as well as old standbys.

ROBOs (remote office/branch offices) have almost as much data to deal with as corporate IT at the data center, but they are treated as second-class citizens. You know, the goofy cousin who we tolerate but ignore whenever possible.

A few weeks ago I blogged about an up-and-coming technology called de-duplication. My objective was to raise end-user awareness about the potentially huge benefits of applying de-duplication technology in secondary storage environments. But what I didn't talk about were all the other places de-duplication can be -- and will soon be -- applied. Data de-duplication technology has significant implications for primary as well as secondary storage environments -- and for archiving too.

So, what can end-users expect? A lot (and I mean a lot) of de-duplication talk from vendors across the board. De-duplication is clearly one of the storage industry's latest buzzwords, and it's only just beginning. Data de-duplication features are popping up everywhere. In the short term, they'll be most visible in data protection solutions, but over time they will be integrated into archive, compliance, and other information and storage management products.

Well, it has taken years, but the data protection requirements of off-site data (that is, data at remote or branch offices) are finally getting the attention of storage vendors industry-wide.

Blame it on falling margin on enterprise-class technologies or attribute it to the real, and growing, awareness by organizations that a very large percentage of their mission-critical data is off-site and subject to the same regulatory compliance and corporate governance requirements as their on-site data, but remote office data protection is front and center today.

Consider these stats:

I was on a call with Hewlett-Packard this week getting a rundown on some upcoming activities, when half-way through the call, in the midst of various and sundry product updates, the HP executive casually mentioned that they had surpassed the 1.5PB mark for VTL capacity shipped. 1.5PB! And that's in only six months.

Sepaton, upon whose technology HP's VTL solution is based (the two companies inked the deal in May 2005), recently announced it grew its VTL business more than 300% year-over-year, signing up more than 300 customers and shipping about 1.0PB of its own VTL capacity; 2.5PB when you factor in HP shipments.

Data protection, as we know it, is changing rapidly – and for the good. One of the most exciting technologies is "data de-duplication," otherwise known as "capacity optimization," "commonality factoring," or "single-instancing," depending on the vendor you talk to.

While data de-duplication has been available for the past year or so from start-ups (e.g., Asigra, Avamar, DataDamain, and Diligent) and OEM software providers (e.g., Rocksoft), it is now on virtually all data protection providers' radar screens. In fact, I'll go out on a limb to say that de-duplication will be one of this year's most-talked-about and implemented new technologies, far surpassing CDP.

SATA tape is just one of those technologies that just seem to make sense – a no-brainer if you will. In fact, if you really think about it, you might wonder why it hasn’t been brought to market sooner, especially since, as one tape vendor put it, only a "little retooling" is necessary to make it happen.