A new approach to data compression

Compression is as old as personal computing, but up until recently it was used mainly for backup and second tier storage. Many attempts to address the challenges of primary storage compression have failed because of degraded performance and lack of transparency.

Because compression of primary storage data has been difficult to address, most data capacity reduction efforts in recent years have been directed at compression during remote transport. This type of compression saves bandwidth but does nothing to reduce stored data volumes. Attempts to compress primary storage data interfered with user workflow and required running software on both storage and end-user devices. These solutions were based on cumbersome sequential access (decompress, update, recompress), work at file-level granularity, or both.
They also wasted client resources and introduced unacceptable latencies.

Storwize primary data compression solution process in real-time only the data required for a particular user or application, and supports multiple applications and data types. The Storwize data compression approach delivers real-time lossless data compression using a dedicated high-performance data compression appliance deployed between the organization’s network switch and storage and save space on primary storage and all related copies without compromising performance, functionality or data integrity.