Storage capacity optimization, which includes data reduction technologies like data deduplication and single instancing , has been the most important development. This is because of the impact it's going to have on lowering the overall cost of backup and other data protection tasks going forward.
These technologies, from companies like Data Domain, Quantum, EMC and Symantec, were primarily targeted at secondary storage for backup and archive purposes. But these same technologies are now also being applied by a group of smaller startups against primary storage. They're going to help reduce the overall amount of raw storage required to store a given amount of data.
Back on the secondary storage side, ou'll be able to store a lot more data in disk for longer periods of time to make it a lot more accessible for recovery purposes. Overall reduction in cost and the associated benefits of being able to retain data longer are the major impacts in the backup arena. They're going to be very important for not only the enterprise, but also SMBs as well.
