How this Helps
Deduplication reduces storage footprint by removing duplicate copies of repeating data and replacing those duplicates with markers (or reference points) that refer back to the original source. In some cases, this can lead to massive savings in disk space utilization for your datacentre storage offerings.
The Scenario
The scenario that Microsoft will support DPM storage deduplication uses a virtual DPM 2012 R2 (with UR4) server running on a Hyper-V cluster with SMB 3.0 and Scale Out File Server (SOFS) technologies. The storage volume VHDX file for the DPM server is located on the SOFS volumes with deduplication enabled.
Whitepaper
A new whitepaper has been released in which, this supported scenario is explained in detail and you can read through the whitepaper from the link below:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn891438.aspx
Positive Outlook for DPM
I think that although this is still a limited scenario in which to achieve deduplication for DPM storage, it's definitely a good step forward and a welcome offering.
Add to this, the new reporting functionality of DPM 2012 R2 when integrated into SCOM - http://www.buchatech.com/2014/11/dpm-2012-r2-reporting-improvements/ - and you can really get a feel that Microsoft are putting a lot of additional resources into a product that at one stage, seemed dead and buried when compared to its competition.
Hopefully the innovations will keep coming!
