Duped by data de-duplication

Should software development specialists be familiar with all aspects of database related technologies? Most, I think, would argue that the two areas are inseparable – according to the majority of programmers I speak to (or know personally), they work alongside DBAs in their day-to-day roles for the most part. Sometimes though, I feel as if I am targeted with database-related news and other materials that would perhaps be better suited to a storage specialist.

A case in point is when I heard last week about IBM acquiring a data de-duplication company whose employees will become part of the IBM System Storage business unit. Data de-duplication focuses on a particular part of the storage industry concerned with eradication of redundant data.

Making the link here, Diligent (that was the company that got bought) develops data de-duplication software that integrates with server and storage infrastructures to reduce, so they say, storage costs in data centres with spiralling complexity.

With the mists clearing around cloud computing and virtualisation – the proximity for software engineering to, at the very least bear in mind, considerations like server consolidation, databases and storage to a greater degree become apparent. There’s a green computing efficiency angle here too for data de-duplication isn’t there?

Is there a new industry term on the horizon perhaps?

“Software programming for storage-aware application design”

Oh yuk – I hope not.