EMC Data Domain's DD Boost protocol offers many benefits over other backup technologies.  For starters, DD Boost allows the backup servers to communicate directly with the Data Domain appliance without the need to emulate tape.  Another advantage of deploying DD Boost is the use  of  Interface groups.  Interface groups allow multiple physical network interfaces to be used as a private, load-balancing network.  While these features of DD Boost alone make this protocol a great option, the real "magic" lies in the use of Distributed Segment Processing.

Distributed Segment Processing, or DSP, performs many of the data deduplication functions on the backup server, eliminating the need to transmit duplicate data across the network.  The obvious benefits of this are that backup jobs are faster, more efficient, and since the data has already been deduplicated, the replication transmission to a disaster recovery site can be begin immediately.

Without DSP enabled, the Data Domain performs all of the necessary deduplication steps once the data hits the device.  These steps include segmenting the data, fingerprinting the segments, filtering the segments, compressing the segments, and writing them do disk.  With DSP enabled, the backup server is responsible for segmentation, fingerprinting, and compression.

DD Boost with Distributed Segment Processing is a terrific technology that greatly improves backup performance, while reducing overall resource usage.