NexentaStor adds primary deduplication

Support for all three hypervisors in VMDC should make life easier for administrators in shops with multiple virtualization systems, because moving data from one virtualization platform to another is not always straightforward, McClure said.

Adding deduplication for primary data may also help some users, though there are trade-offs, she said.

"A lot of people are concerned about the performance aspects," McClure said.

Essentially, deduplication involves a trade-off between CPU cycles (to deduplicate the data and bring it back to its original form) and storage capacity. If a company's applications can't handle delays well, it might not be able to take advantage of deduplication of primary data.

NexentaStor is available free to existing customers and can be downloaded for a free trial at the company's website.