Posts filed under 'Products'
Druvaa today announced the general availability of Druvaa inSync v2.1 which brings latest performance innovations from Druvaa and beating the Fast inSync v2.0 by almost 25%.
New features and improvements include -
- Up to 25% performance improvement specially while backing up over the WAN. (Details)
- Upgrade support for 1.x and 2.0 installations.
- Unicode path/file-name support.
- Log file path support for XP/Vista and misc. bug fixes.
A detailed list can be found in Release Notes.
Download 30 day evaluation copy - http://www.druvaa.com/download/insync.html
For further information and sales queries please contact sales@druvaa.com
About Druvaa inSync
Druvaa inSync offers upto 10 times faster enterprise notebook backup compared to traditional methods with 90% reduction in bandwidth and storage utilization. The solution uses advanced data de-duplication technology to backup data duplicate between users only once. On restore the user sees a timeline view of data and can restore from any point in the past.
More information about the product - http://www.druvaa.com/products/insync.html
About Druvaa
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
About Druvaa - http://www.druvaa.com/about/
About Products - http://www.druvaa.com/products/
August 4th, 2008
One of the major goals for inSync 2.1 release (due this week) is improved performance. With this new release users should be able to experience almost 30% speed improvements specially while syncing smaller files.
While working on inSync 2.1, team Druvaa rediscovered some tips and tricks for performance improvement -
Code Profilers
They can give you very quick insights into bottlenecks. It’s better to start at profiler output than from a hypothesis. Start working out a hypothesis only after profiler points out a bad function. We used
gprof2dot, which plots a nice graph from prof or gprof output. An example is shown below -
The graph shows top down hierarchy of functions, the percentage of time each function consumes, the number of calls etc. The percentage of time consumed by a function puts the performance optimization exercise in the right perspective. You don’t want to optimize a function if it contributes just 1% to the whole processing time. The general idea is to concentrate on function that consumes substantial time and is not supposed to do it. Once a few functions like this are optimized, you can go for another round of profiling.
Network Utilization
It’s not sufficient to just reduce the network bandwidth usage. It’s equally important to completely utilize your share of the network bandwidth.
Especially for non-interactive applications, the throughput matters much more than the latency. In a system that uses a single threaded client to issue RPC calls, thethroughput is governed by the latency. If one RPC call takes a long time, the throughput is low even though there is no bottleneck, persay. Looking at it in a different way, the network is not being utilized when the server is processing the call. A multi-threaded client improves network utilization and also throughput. Sometimes the cause for poor network performance could be outside your code. For example, the TCP default window size shows poor performance with high latency-high bandwidth network. Increasing TCP window size improves performance for such networks and so does the use of multiple TCP connections.
Caching
Caching frequently used data reduces the database queries or disk reads. Database queries and disk reads may not consume the CPU cycles but they add to the latency in a big way.
Muti-threading can work around latency but it comes with its own overheads in terms of code complexity and resource consumption. Simple caching avoids frequent trips to database/disk. Databases and operating systems maintain their own cache but the overheads of connecting to a database or issuing a system call are avoided at best.
Beware of stale caches and serialization issues.
Delayed Writes
Synchronous writes are slow. Some writes, for example activity logs, can be delayed indefinitely. Other writes that need persistance gurantees can be synced in batches than individually.
This holds true for both databases and file systems. It’s cheaper to do multiple inserts in one sqlite transaction than to create one transaction for each insert. On the file system side, you are better
off writing a few MBytes to a file, followed by a fsync than multiple few KBytes of writes and a fsync for each write.
Batch requests
A batch of 10 queries sent to a database works faster than 10 queries issued one after the other. Encoding the 10 queries as a pl/sql function works even better. This is primarily due to the socket communication overheads, specifically the latency involved in it.
For inSync 2.1, we found that the lowest hanging fruits were with the database and file system interactions. We sure plucked all of them 
July 28th, 2008
A very nice article covered by Calley Nye (TechCrunch) | July 9, 2008
Druvaa, an enterprise data backup solutions provider, recently launched their new product, Druvaa inSync. InSync is an enterprise PC backup system, that boasts 10x faster data backup while reducing 90% of the bandwidth and storage utilization.
InSync is based around a new technology from Druvaa called SendUnique, that creates a fingerprint for each file to prevent duplication. When 80% of enterprise files and communication are common between users, de-duplication is an important consideration. SendUnique uses a Single Instance File System on the backup server, and compares the file fingerprints during the backup to the files already on the server to determine if it’s unique data. This works especially well for remote notebook computer users who have essentially the same data on multiple computers. There is also a timeline-based system to track changes to existing files in order to restore point-in-time data from any specific time.
Some other new solutions have attempted to fix these problems, but in very different ways. Microsoft Single Instance Service, and Data-Domain both attempt to filter out similar data through traditional single-instancing at backup server level. Newer solutions like Avamar (EMC) and PureDisk (Veritas, a division of Symantec), filter content at the backup-server level before sending data to a remote store. All of these solutions save bandwidth and storage, but the calculations weigh down the CPU and simple block checksum matching often fails to interpret common data.
Druvaa is a new startup based in India, and has received $250,000 in a seed round from the Indian Angel Network in January 2008. They recently were awarded the Indian Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008 Award, chosen out of 8 finalists and 140 applications.
July 23rd, 2008
June 26th, 2008
After keeping it beta for more than a month, Druvaa on June 26th announced the general availability of Druvaa inSync v2.0. The idea behind v2.0 is fast and bandwidth/storage efficient backup. The much awaited release, brings two very interesting and unique features -
1. SendUnique - 10x Faster backup with 90% reduction in storage and bandwidth utilization.
Almost 80% of PC data (emails/docs) within an enterprise is common between users. SendUnique technology fingerprints the user’s backup set to send only one copy of data (emails/docs) common between different users to the backup server. This speeds up backup by almost 10 times and cut bandwidth usage by 90%.
2. Eternity - Never Lose a file. Ever.
Timeline based, from-the-past restore. Enables ultimate protection against data loss or virus attacks.
More information about the product - http://www.druvaa.com/products/insync.html
Download evaluation copy - http://www.druvaa.com/download/insync.html
For further information and sales queries please contact sales@druvaa.com
About druvaa
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
About Druvaa - http://www.druvaa.com/about/
About Products - http://www.druvaa.com/products/
June 26th, 2008
The Gartner Report (here) says storage data de-duplication and virtualization are two main technologies driving innovation in storage management software this year. This makes sense, considering the fact that corporate data is increasing at a whooping 60% annual rate. (Microsoft Report says here).
Server Backup
Data is very rarely common between production servers of different types. Its not difficult to imagine that Exchange email server may not have same content as Oracle database server. But data is largely duplicate within file-servers, exchange server and say a bunch of ERP servers (development and test). This duplication creates potential bottlenecks for bandwidth and storage used for backup.
Existing players have offered two solutions to this problem -
- Traditional single-instancing at backup server to filter out common content e.g Microsoft Single Instance Service (in Data center edition). This saves the just storage cost, depending upon at what level to filter commonalities - file / block / byte. A big player in this space is Data-Domain. These solutions don’t have a client component, they just save storage space.
- New innovative solutions like Avamar (now with EMC) and PureDisk (now with Veritas) which try filter content at backup server level before the data goes to the (remote) store. This makes these solutions much better suited for remote-office backups. They save bandwidth and storage.
But, there are two unsolved problems with both these approaches as well ( Which also, explains a poor response for these products in the market )-
- most of the times simple block checksum matching fails to figure out common data, as it may not fall on block boundaries . Eg. if you insert a simple byte in a file, the whole file changes and all the blocks shift. And the block checksum approach fails.
- Checksum calculation is very costly and makes backups CPU exhaustive.
- These approaches are targeting storage cost, not time/bandwidth which is more critical.
PC Backups
The problem is much more complex at PC level, as duplicated data is distributed among users and is as high as 90% in some cases. Emails / documents and similar file formats create large pool of duplicate data between users.
Also, since 50% of PC backup is mainly large email files, this is problem is particularly difficult to solve using simple file based de-duplication techniches used by servers.
Druvaa inSync v2.0 uses a on-wire (distributed) de-duplication technique which senses duplicate data before the backup starts and hences skips it from the backup. This is transparent to the user, all he notices is a 10 times boost in backup speed with over 90% reduction in bandwidth and storage usage.
How it works
This technology creates and maintains a Global “Single Instance” File System at backup server. Each time a user wants to backup a file, the insync clients prepares a file-fingerprint (using linear polynomial based hash) and compares it with the server. After the server sends a response, the backup happens only for the “unique” data within the file.
The (patent pending) advance file-fingerprinting makes it computationally very easy to filter common content like - same paragraphs in different documents, a same CCed email, media rich corporate presentations etc. This cuts down time for backup by 10 times and reduces bandwidth and storage utilization by 90%.
Other Interesting Features
Another good use of the Gobal Single Instance File System is - Continuous Data protection. The user after starting the restore can see how his files changes over time. Which gives him an option to restore point-in-time data from any point in the past. The marketing name for the feature is - “Eternity. Never lose a file. Ever.” A long name, but serves its meaning
Business Opportunities
The same technology/product can be stripped down to backup PDAs and scaled up to backup servers. A good use case would be to reduce time for backup of bunch of related remote servers.
June 15th, 2008
Druvaa announces the availability of Druvaa inSync 2.0 Beta. The idea behind v2.0 is fast and bandwidth/storage efficient backup. The much awaited release, brings four very interesting and unique features -
1. SendUnique - Enterprise wide on-wire data de-duplication. Almost 80% of PC data (emails/docs) within an enterprise is common between users. SendUnique technology fingerprints the user’s backup set to send only one copy of data (emails/docs) common between different users to the backup server. This speeds up backup by almost 10 times and cut bandwidth usage by 90%.
2. Eternity - Never Loose a file. Ever. Timeline based, from-the-past restore. Enables ultimate protection against data loss or virus attacks.
3. NetworkSense - Automatic network sensing and prioritization. Allocates a user defined percentage of bandwidth for backups.
4. TrueSecure - Client triggered secure backups. 256 byte network (SSL) and 256 bit (AES) storage encryption.
You can sign up here for beta evaluation and updates.
The following presentations describes the 2.0 feature set -
May 23rd, 2008
May 5, 2008
Druvaa Software today announced the general availability of Druvaa Replicator version 2.0. Druvaa Replicator is a volume data replication and disaster recovery solution. It near-synchronously and non-disruptively replicates production data to target storage across heterogeneous operating environments (storage, application and OS) and over unlimited distances. The new release brings significant performance improvements for large servers and WAN based replication.
The new release comes with five key improvements -
- Performance improvements in replication agent specially for large servers
- Caching server is now an optional and separately priced
- Intelligent Data compression, minimal de-duplication and enhanced caching support at Caching Server
- Advanced reporting with detailed/searchable activity log
- Simplified user interface and license management
Version 2.0 is released on Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 server and RedHat Enterprise Linux release 4.x/5.x
More information about the product - http://www.druvaa.com/products/replicator.html
Evaluation version of Replication 2.0 can be directly downloaded from - http://www.druvaa.com/download/replicator.html
For further information and sales queries please contact sales@druvaa.com
About druvaa
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
About Druvaa - http://www.druvaa.com/about/
About Products - http://www.druvaa.com/products/
May 5th, 2008
We still couldn’t figure out what makes the traditional backups so slow and resource hungry.
But, we benchmarked insync against normal network copy using a HP dual core machine configured for 50 users. Here are the results -
You can download the PDF (117KB) and other related documents from http://www.druvaa.com/download/insync.html
Should the results differ for a larger set of users ? Looks difficult, but would soon try and publish (upcoming) version 2.0 benchmarks with larger set of users.
- Jaspreet
April 18th, 2008
For the first timers - Druvaa inSync is a Fast Enterprise Laptop Sync solution mainly targeted at LAN/WAN based backups for mobile workforce and cross office backup consolidation.
inSync Details - http://www.druvaa.com/products/insync.html
inSync Features - http://www.druvaa.com/products/insync_features.html
Druvaa inSync 2.0 is being targeted as a complete laptop data sync protection solution.
Feature Set
a) Server Side
- Performance improvements - Improved sync algorithm (based on xdelta-3).
- Continuous Data Protection - Date/time based “from the past” restore.
- Network Profiles - admin configures network profiles with -
- IP addresses
- Network Type LAN/WAN/Auto (to optimize on backup packet sizes)
- On-wire compression levels
- Pluggable Storage Architecture - to make way for storage engines like encrypted, compressed, single instance, Amazon S3
- Single Instance Store - powerful block level de-duplication/single instancing.
- Storage Profiles - admin configures storage profiles with storage engine and capacity
- User Profiles - binds network and storage profiles with user profiles/groups. A totally flexible way of choosing which user syncs using which network and what storage type.
- Remote Data Deletion/Encryption - Theft protection
- Live Reports - Statistic, Graphs and email Alerts.
b) Client Side
- Bandwidth QoS - Choose backup bandwidth cap by percentage not value.
- Search backed-up files - allow users to search files in backup by names
- Auto restore/heal - automatically “heal” the laptop by restoring all files to default location
- Live Console - View live logs and backup activity
.
Feedback Suggestion
Druvaa inSync team would like to hear your feedback/suggestions -
- Whats your take on planed features ?
- Anything we missed or you would like to suggest ?
March 24th, 2008
March 12, 2008
Targeted at Small Office Home Office (SOHO) segment, Druvaa today announced Free (of Cost and Support) 25 full-feature inSync ver 1.x licesenses. - http://www.druvaa.com/products/insync_evaluate.html
To avail the licenses the user needs to download hand deploy inSync Server and register at the website. Druvaa would never charge any money for released licenses.
The announcement also coincides with Druvaa inSync release 1.1.3 which adds open-file/locked-file support which is particularly very useful for Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007 backup. ( GA would be available shortly at - download link)
Druvaa also undertakes opensource, startup and educational initiatives. Take a look at - http://www.druvaa.com/services/initiatives.html
About Druvaa inSync
Druvaa inSync is a Enterprise Laptop Backup solution targeted at mobile users and cross-office backups. Its ability to make optimum use of available bandwidth to securely sync critical PC data over LAN/internet, make its a truly unique offering.
About Druvaa
Formed in 2007, Druvaa Software is a leading provider of Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery solutions. Since inception Druvaa has released two products - Druvaa Replicator (Continuous Data Protection and Disaster Recovery) and Druvaa inSync (Enterprise Laptop Backup). Druvaa is angel funded by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Accord Internation (HK).
About Druvaa - http://www.druvaa.com/about/
About Products - http://www.druvaa.com/products/
March 12th, 2008
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