Windows 8 to have a new Storage reduction feature, known as "Dedup”

According to the new article published on TechNet, the IntelliMirror service management team is now working with the Windows File Server product group to establish the viability of adopting a storage reduction feature, known as "Dedup," in Windows 8. Here is the extract from the TechNet page which reads about the future developments.

Following on from the successful implementation of this service improvement plan, the IntelliMirror service management team is now evaluating a range of new technologies to further improve the service. These include evaluating features planned for Windows 8, assessing the viability of failover clusters for key sites, and exploring whether some of the IntelliMirror features can be moved to the cloud through the Windows Azure™ technology platform.

The IntelliMirror service management team is now working with the Windows File Server product group to establish the viability of adopting a storage reduction feature, known as "Dedup," planned for Windows 8. After MSIT identifies the features that can add the most value to the IntelliMirror service, it will set up a test environment in the Microsoftinfrastructure to validate the scenarios and establish a new service improvement plan.

Also, in partnership with the branch-office services team, the IntelliMirror service management team is introducing failover clusters to large branch offices (those that have more than 3,000 users) to provide high availability in these locations. Part of Windows Server 2008 R2, failover clusters can scale to include 16 servers (nodes) in a single cluster by using a shared storage back end with support for Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Internet SCSI (iSCSI), or Fiber Channel interconnects. Initially, MSIT plans to use two-node clusters in its large branch offices.