Data Deduplication, of course, is the method in which technology is used to help eliminate duplicate or redundant information, and not a phrase uttered by an over-excited Porky Pig. It helps companies reduce the amount of storage required for backups and data retention.
Microsoft has recently added Deduplication services to System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) through the release of Update Rollup 4 for DPM 2012 R2. In actuality, Microsoft has simply made the Deduplication feature of Windows 2012 R2 available to DPM. The integration allows Deduplication implementations for the following workloads:
- General file shares
- Software deployment shares
- VHD libraries
- VDI Deployments
- Virtualized backup
Microsoft suggests that the implementation of the new feature can provide storage savings from 50% to 90%.
According to Microsoft, you must be running DPM 2012 R2 UR4 and Windows 2012 R2 host and file servers with latest KBs installed for Deduplication to be available to you. In essence, you must be up-to-date.
Full instructions on how to install, configure, and implement Deduplication for DPM 2012 R2, can be found in the TechNet library here: Deduplicating DPM storage
