Consolidation
Data Compression for Primary Storage - Medical Imaging to benefit - September 27, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Primary data reduction startup Ocarina Networks disclosed plans at Storage Decisions this week to add data migration features, snapshots, support for virtual global namespace and file compression by industry type to its compression appliance.
The product upgrade is the first major enhancement to the Ocarina ECO System compression appliance since the startup emerged from stealth in April. Ocarina's initial launch was aimed mainly at photo-sharing websites, and now it is expanding into the entertainment, oil and gas, and medical imaging markets.
ECOmove is a new utility designed to help users migrate data from primary storage to nearline compressed archives. "Generally, data is left on Tier 2 storage only 30 to 90 days," said Carter George, vice president of products for Ocarina. "But it takes 18 months to make a movie, and some movie studios that have our product want to be able to keep all files associated with a project online for the duration of that project." Ocarina claims to be able to further compress even already compressed file formats, such as JPEGs, allowing for the retention of more multimedia data on disk.
ECOsnap creates what George called "archive-appropriate snapshots." That means "it's not copy-on-write or snapshots for backup. This reads a file and shrinks it, and then instead of storing a new shrunk file, consolidates it together with existing versions in the archive." The feature is similar to NetApp's space-efficient snapshots, but for photos. "It creates a time-sequenced archive with a time-slider user interface so that, for example, movie artists can say, 'show me this scene as it looked three months ago,'" George said.
ECO System now supports virtual global namespaces based on its ability to put pointers to compressed data in "suitcases" within a file system. The new virtual global namespace allows customers to create a "suitcase of suitcases" so they can store and manage pointers to all files in a large file system.
As Ocarina looks to branch out into new market segments, it's adding compression support for new types of files used in different industries, including AVI, Maya and RenderMan files for the entertainment industry, online seismic data applications for the oil and gas industry, and X-Ray, MRI and PET scan images for the healthcare market.
Currently, Ocarina reduces only still images with video support planned for the next release in early 2009.
Ocarina adds new storage partners
Ocarina hasn't named any customers yet, but George said the vendor is making headway adding storage partners in the NAS space, including Hewlett-Packard, Isilon and Ibrix. HP will integrate Ocarina's compression with its ExDS9100 clustered NAS system when it's released later this year. "We currently have two systems installed with Isilon and four with HP," George said.
Gartner analyst David Russell predicts Ocarina's compression won't be a standalone product for long. "[Primary storage data reduction] is a feature that over time might become like compression in tapes," he said. "Starts as a standalone product, then becomes a feature and now even the cheapest autoloader has compression – you'd probably have to look up how to turn it off."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
What Data Domain does not want you to know about - Storwize Primary Storage Compression Appliances - August 19, 2008
Orlando Florida – Storwize Inc., the only provider of real-time primary storage data compression solutions, today introduced the next generation edition of its award-winning STN-6000™ product family. The Storwize P Series encompasses a family of products tailored for different customer environments, ranging from entry-level operations, to data center environments with tens of thousands of users in the most data-intensive industries, as well as oil and gas exploration and financial services.
Storwize has transitioned to a 64-bit architecture and is rolling out its high end appliance, the STN-6800p completing its solutions coverage for all market segments. The STN-6800p is designed to work with large-scale enterprise storage platforms such as the NetApp FAS6070 and the EMC Celerra NSX.
The three P Series models are application agnostic and provide optimized solutions across a range of environments:
• STN-6300p is the company’s entry-level model providing the same availability, reliability and efficiency of higher-end models
• STN-6500p is optimized for enterprise environments
• STN-6800p expands enterprise functionality to high-end environments performing large file processing on huge volumes of files
All three new models are also available in an optional High Availability configuration, which provides the highest level of mission critical information availability and ensures data integrity and business continuity.
“The P Series platform addresses all the distinct user requirements for cost, performance and application optimization across the full spectrum of IT users,” said Gal Naor, Storwize CEO. “Storwize now offers end to end solutions to all market segments from entry-level to high performance computing data center environments yielding dramatic data foot print reductions regardless of the vertical or data type at stake. Our customer successes validate the maturity, leadership and industry recognition that Storwize has well earned by creating the primary optimization market.”
According to Brian McCarthy President and a 25 year Storage veteran for Sencilo solutions of Orlando Florida, “Without question, Storwize is leading the way for primary storage capacity optimization and the P Series enhancements certainly raise the performance bar for this class of products. Most of the attention about data reduction technologies has been focused on secondary storage platforms but given the vast amounts of storage that companies are still struggling to manage, the substantial cost benefits of properly applied primary compression should cause IT departments everywhere to take a hard look at the advantages of the new STN-6000 Series.”
The Storwize family of real-time compression appliances allows companies to extend the lifecycle of their data center. All appliances in the Series are transparent to end users and applications, ensure data integrity and are vendor-agnostic. Simple plug-and-play, the P Series products are complementary to other solutions and technologies intended to reduce storage consumption, such as de-duplication, virtualization and thin provisioning.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
NetApp Adds De-Dupe Capabilities for Primary Storage but Storwize has something Better - August 5, 2008
Orlando Flordia --Network Appliance (NSDQ:NTAP) this week is bringing its data de-duplication technology to a wider channel and customer base by making it available for use with a wide range of data management applications.
De-duplication, also called "de-dupe," removes duplicate information as data is backed up or archived. It can be done on the file level, where duplicate files are replaced with a marker pointing to one copy of the file, and/or at the sub-file or byte level, where duplicate bytes of data are removed, resulting in a significant decrease in storage capacity requirements.
NetApp has had de-dupe technology for a couple of years as part of the NetApp advanced single-instance storage (A-SIS) technology for its NearStore and FAS storage systems, said Ravi Thota, director of the vendor's product marketing for data protection and retention.
A-SIS was part of the company's SnapVault for NetBackup, an application on which it cooperated with Symantec (NSDQ:SYMC). However, Thota said, it was limited to the NetBackup environment only.
Starting this week, however, NetApp is making de-dupe available on its FAS and its NearStore R200 storage systems regardless of which data management software is used, Thota said.
"It has been tested with CommVault, but works with others," he said. "And it works not just with backups, but with archival and primary storage, and it works in both file and block environments."
When used with a NetApp storage device, the software enables de-dupe of data once it arrives at the device, Thota said. Because de-dupe is done at the storage device, it can work with any vendor's software, he said.
Merrill Likes, president of UpTime, an Edmond, Okla.-based NetApp solution provider, said he is glad to see NetApp finally opening its de-dupe technology to non-NetBackup environments. "It will be very important with VTL (virtual tape library) technology going forward," Likes said. But not all resellers agree, Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions and 30 year storage veteran says "several of his NetApp customer have turned off A-SIS sighting very poor performance and data recovery issues." NetApp is just trying to play catch up and is doing a very poor job at it, says McCarthy.
However, Likes said he expects his customers to focus de-dupe on secondary storage for now, and stay away from using it with primary storage until the technology has a chance to prove itself, to this McCarthy agrees. NetApp is actually letting customers know this in a written bulletin and asking them to sign it, that they are a where of low performance issues."
"If de-dupe is used on primary storage, there will be overhead when rebuilding the data if there is a problem," he said. "Secondary storage provides fairly linear access to data, but on primary storage, there is more random access to the data."
The de-dupe feature is available free-of-charge on NetApp's NearStore R200 appliance, and as a $3,000 option for its FAS appliances.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
Primary Storage Data Compression is now a Reality - July 26, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Storewiz, Inc. is the only provider of online data compression solutions that dramatically boost storage space on network storage environments. Storewiz appliances are installed between the organization’s storage arrays and their network. Designed to work with any storage array it is connected to, the Storewiz appliance typically provides organizations with 2-5X additional capacity with associated savings in capital, operational, maintenance and management resources. Storewiz solutions have been successfully tested for interoperability with leading storage vendors such as EMC and NetApp.
Storewiz Inc., the only provider of innovative online storage compression solutions, introduces its STN-6000™ product line – a set of third-generation data compression appliances built around a new multi-core compression architecture that features state-of-the-art processors, more efficient algorithms, an improved compression ratio, a robust architecture for all future developments and other enhancements that enable the most data-intensive enterprises to maximize their growing network infrastructure at a fraction of their current cost. Designed for enterprise implementations, the new appliances are designed to provide impressive compression rates without affecting the performance of applications connected to the network.
The STN-6000 line is launching with two products targeted at companies with a wide range of applications: • STN-6300 is ideally suited for departmental/remote office, distributed applications and archival/ compliance. The STN-6300 delivers the availability, reliability and efficiency organizations require while reducing the time and equipment costs typically associated with data management. • STN-6500 is ideally suited to handle the demanding performance and scalability requirements of enterprise business and technical applications. By eliminating the need for network reconfiguration, the STN-6500 provides superior flexibility to quickly respond to evolving business needs.
“Without question, Storewiz is leading the way for this critical new market of primary storage capacity optimization,” said Brad O'Neill, Senior Analyst with Taneja Group. “Storewiz is demonstrating to enterprise IT that optimizing application data in real-time with advanced compression software is a very high-value function. Not only can it reduce primary storage costs and improve storage utilization, it also plays a key role in improving storage performance as well. Akin to how de-duplication approaches have optimized backup and archiving in the enterprise, primary storage optimization software will also soon become a defacto fixture in enterprise data centers. I believe Storewiz is in an excellent position to drive this new category's growth.”
Storewiz continues its lead in data compression technology by developing a new, patent-pending engine that leverages a powerful multi-core hardware platform that results in wire speed compression. This technology enables existing infrastructures to store on average three times more data than is available today with no performance degradation. Built upon the success of the company’s STN-5000™, the STN-6000 is a plug-and-play solution that easily adds on to storage systems while remaining completely transparent to users, applications, databases, storage and network environments.
According to Brian McCarthy, President of Sencilo solutions, “Our customers know about data growth firsthand, since they are challenged with the on-going expenses involved in adding primary storage systems and the related man hours in its management. It’s not difficult for them to quickly realize the benefits of a data compression appliance, and the ease in which it is installed and managed.”
STN-6000 features include: • An improved data compression ratio of on average 10 percent greater than previously offered with the STN-5000
• A robust architecture designed to support future storage-related developments and applications
• Management enhancements built into the system’s high-availability design that ensure continued access to data and help eliminate costly downtime
• An enhanced read cache algorithm that improves system response times by reducing the number of physical I/O requests that are read from storage
• Improved maintainability in order to allow monitoring and ease of maintenance
“No other vendor has even approached the sophisticated abilities of our first generation of data compression appliances and yet here we are launching our third,” said Gal Naor, Storewiz CEO. “Our unique approach to real-time compression through the offloading and centralization of data in a powerful and dedicated appliance such as our STN-6000, provides users with an unbeatable business solution that enables them to maximize current and future storage investments while safeguarding their business-critical information with no performance degradation.”
The Storewiz STN-6000 requires no workflow changes, no software agents, no drivers and no configuration changes. It supports both file- and block-level data compression for all tiers of storage and applications, including OLTP databases. By compressing data at rest, Storewiz lets organizations retain fast access to files and databases while saving capital, operation and maintenance costs – without altering vendor storage functionality. And with no resident file system, Storewiz appliances are interchangeable with no loss of data.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
EMC CLARiiON CX now shipping with Solid-State Drives (SSD) - June 20, 2008
Orlando Florida -- EMC Corp. will add a new Clariion midrange storage array with solid-state drives (SSD) over the next few months, SearchStorage.com has learned. EMC began offering SSD in its enterprise Symmetrix systems earlier this year, and industry sources say that EMC will extend its support of SSD technology with the Clariion CX4-80, which is expected to be generally available in August. Brian McCarthy President and EMC Partner stated "tier 0 is long over do, and welcomes moving his client based to this new technology".
One source familiar with the SSD-supported Clariion arrays said the latest versions of Symmetrix and Clariion arrays share hardware components, including disk trays and outer skins. This makes it relatively simple for EMC to slot SSDs into the Clariion now that it's been done for Symmetrix.
EMC would neither confirm nor deny the rumors about the Clariion CX4-80, issuing a statement saying, "At EMC World, we spoke about the many benefits of flash technology, EMC's investment in testing and qualification, and that we would incorporate it into our product portfolio where it made the most sense. Beyond that, we are not going to be able to provide any specifics as to announcements, products or time frames."
Since EMC pledged in January to support SSDs in Symmetrix, other vendors, including Xiotech, FalconStor, Nimbus Data Systems, Hitachi Data Systems, NetApp and Sun, have also said they would support SSDs in enterprise storage arrays. That leaves Hewlett-Packard and IBM as the two major players who have yet to divulge their plans regarding SSDs in enterprise storage arrays. HP and IBM are still playing catch up on so many fronts, done look for SSD any time soon, stated McCarthy.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
The Next Generation of Backup will include incremental backups and CDP for VMware - June 13, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Symantec Corp. boosted its support for VMware's products in two new incremental releases for NetBackup at Symantec Vision.
The updates to NetBackup come as part of two new "double-dot" releases, NetBackup 6.5.2, which is available immediately and NetBackup 6.5.3, which is expected later this summer. "We have a new release model for NetBackup," said Matt Kixmoeller, vice president of product management for Symantec. "We're looking to get innovations to market faster, rather than just having an enormous big-bang release every few years."
Support for incremental and parallel snapshots of VMware hosts through NetBackup's VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) integration are the main new features of the NetBackup 6.5.2 release, which also includes CDP and complete integration with PureDisk's data deduplication.
"On the large scale, the XenServer platform has some fundamental advantages," said Rob Soderberry, senior vice president for Symantec's storage and availability management group. "Our strategy is to create the best possible exploitation of the XenServer and VMware stack, and let customers and clients decide what they want to pursue."
Symantec is adding granular recovery technology into NetBackup. The feature was first incorporated into its product line with Backup Exec 11d, which allows unique object recovery from a single backup instead of through a secondary redundant backup that forced customers to use twice the space and time for backups if they wanted granular restores. Version 6.5.2 will make the feature available for Windows hosts, VMware hosts, and SharePoint Portal. Exchange integration will follow in NetBackup 6.5.3.
"Most snapshots, including Microsoft's VSS, don't allow you to get a file directly out without restoring the full snapshot," said analyst Lauren Whitehouse, Enterprise Strategy Group. "That feature puts Symantec a step above even Microsoft and other VCB integrations at this point."
NetBackup customer Eddy Navarro, a storage computer systems manager for J. Craig Venter Institute, said he's been waiting for the ability to schedule multiple concurrent snapshots of VMware hosts. "[In previous versions], NetBackup purposely set a cap on concurrent snapshots, meaning you could only schedule one at a time," Navarro said. This was done to avoid overwhelming environments that couldn't handle the load of parallel snapshots. "But, we have the infrastructure that can handle it," Navarro added.
Navarro said he's also looking forward to support for NDMP backups to disk in the new version. He wants that for his NetApp filers. While there might be ways to make the NAS backup standard dump directly to disk, Navarro wasn't familiar with them and wants all backups done through one portal. "I don't want to have to go back when I want to do a restore and say, now which way did I back this up?" he said.
New CDP, data deduplication integration
NetBackup 6.5.2 will also include the first integration with Symantec's CDP software acquired from Revivio in late 2006 and renamed RealTime 6.5.
NetBackup will be able to request snapshots from RealTime, but it will otherwise use a separate repository and interface until NetBackup 7.0 is released next year. While a new "NetBackup-like" interface on RealTime lays the groundwork for an integrated GUI, the repository will probably remain separate because Symantec expects users to deploy the "copy every write" software sparingly, according to Kixmoeller.
"The first generation of CDP struggled because there wasn't enough deep integration with applications," he said. With this re-release of Revivio's IP, NetBackup agents running on application servers will create pointers to quiesced snapshot copies in the CDP stream. The catalog of files and recovery screens will also be done in NetBackup.
Symantec has yet to integrate CDP with replication, another item on its roadmap since last year. "Symantec supports several replication products," said senior analyst Eric Burgener, Taneja Group. "Depending on how replication is linked into the CDP process, it can make it difficult to unlink it and use it with something else."
NetBackup 6.5.2 also completes an integration process between NetBackup and Symantec's PureDisk data deduplication software that has been ongoing since NetBackup 6.1. PureDisk agents can now perform data deduplication at the client, backup media server or target. Symantec is also supporting a stack of PureDisk, Veritas Cluster Server and Storage Foundation to create a grid architecture for post-process data deduplication on the target side.
While this stack of licenses could get confusing, the number of options Symantec is offering is more important, Whitehouse said. "It allows you to coordinate your backup strategy to your workload." "And, setting up various agents is a process you only do once."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-data-deduplication.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
How much should you spend on disaster recovery (DR)? - May 31, 2008
Orlando Florida -- It's a trick question that few, if any, storage administrators know how to answer. You can easily spend a king's ransom to protect your data, but few companies have that kind of money. The key to cost-effective DR is first placing a value on the data--and understanding how the data's value changes over time--and then matching various data protection technologies to that value. Here in Florida Hurrican season starts tomorrow, June 1 and last until November 30th. So my guess to those of us in the Gulf States - Will you be ready?
In an earlier blog (see The search for cost-effective disaster recovery), I described how to develop an application/data classification foundation (ADCF) that lays the groundwork for cost-effective DR. This foundation has six steps:
Classify each application and its data into four categories:
- Mission critical
- Essential
- Important
- Less critical
- Determine the required recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) for each class of data.
- Determine the available DR options per class of data.
- Establish each option's TCO for the expected life of the implementation.
- Evaluate the skills required at all DR locations.
- Match the data, DR options and skills to the budget to determine the breadth of the DR GAP (the difference between the level of DR required and the level of affordable DR, or the difference between the actual level provided and the level required).
- Remote mirroring
- Remote mirroring provides data accessibility protection for an application using physically separate locations. While similar to mirroring within a RAID array, remote mirroring takes place over MAN or WAN distances. It's usually between storage arrays or storage appliances, and can be synchronous or asynchronous.
Synchronous remote mirroring is the highest possible level for DR RPO and RTO. The RPO is "zero" lost data, and the RTO is typically seconds to minutes. Synchronous remote mirroring does this by neither completing nor acknowledging the local write until the remote write is completed and acknowledged. Additional writes can't occur until each preceding write has been completed and acknowledged. This means local performance is directly related to the performance of the DR remote device; distance is the limiting factor. Remote synchronous mirroring is rarely deployed for circuit distances greater than 160km (100 miles). http://www.sencilo.com/storage-software.php
With asynchronous remote mirroring, local writes are completed and acknowledged before the remote writes. Asynchronous remote mirroring is a "store-and-forward" technique that reduces I/Os and wait delays, allowing remote writes to fall behind the local writes. This means the RPO for lost data can range from seconds to minutes, and even hours in some cases. Asynchronous remote mirroring is most often utilized when the remote site is a long distance from the local site.
The primary advantage of both synchronous and asynchronous remote mirroring is the minimal (asynchronous) to zero (synchronous) risk exposure in losing data during a disaster. A secondary advantage is the potential for quick data recovery when a disaster occurs. Remote mirroring doesn't require server agents, and it provides heterogeneous server and application support.
Remote mirroring applications are often pricey, the equipment is usually expensive, and it typically requires at least twice the primary disk space and sometimes much more. However, when the lowest possible RPO and RTO are the requirement, remote mirroring is the answer.
Another disadvantage is that remote mirroring doesn't prevent a rolling disaster, data damage, corruption or accidental deletion. If data is corrupted, damaged or deleted at the primary site, it will also be at the DR site. Some asynchronous remote mirroring products timestamp each transaction and allow recovery to a point in time before the corruption or deletion occurred, but they're exceptions to the rule. This means procedures other than remote mirroring must also be implemented to allow for recovery of corrupted, damaged or deleted data. Other disadvantages include lack of support for heterogeneous arrays, no support for internal storage, and nearly no application and file information.
Less-expensive alternatives to remote mirroring can also provide the lowest possible RPO and RTO. They're generally continuous data protection (CDP) products and include time-based continuous snapshots, automated backup, replication of changed data and automated, generational-change distributed backup. They offer a lower TCO than remote mirroring, support heterogeneous storage and provide better rollback capabilities. But they usually require installing and managing agents.
Backup
Backup applications copy primary stored data directly from the application server and move it over TCP/IP networks to a local backup server or remote DR backup server. The server then writes the copied data to disk or tape. RPO is the window between backups or incremental backups. RTO is minimally hours, but usually days to weeks.
While backup is the primary DR application deployed in most IT organizations, it also has the highest failure rate. Failures can be attributed to user error, bandwidth issues, throughput issues, tape issues and even application server availability requirements. http://www.sencilo.com/prod-storagesoftware.php
The primary advantage of backup is its familiarity--it's a known quantity, both good and bad. Storage administrators know how to deploy and use backup, and the TCO is relatively low depending on the storage environment.
The two key disadvantages of backup are that its RPO and RTO are usually quite high, and backup is a local process. There are exceptions, however. Several backup programs distribute and centralize backup while providing continuous incremental backups, shrinking the RPO considerably. Unfortunately, recovery time is still a lengthy process. Data consistency and usability--the ability to use the backed up data without modification, reordering or re-creation--may also be a problem. Backup programs require server-based agents and backup costs escalate sharply as the environment scales and grows more complex.
Backup products are evolving and improving. Virtual tape, disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) and massive array of idle disks (MAID) technologies speed backups and recovery times. New types of backup software, such as content-addressable storage (CAS), reduce the amount of data required to back up by sending only changed data and meta tags about data. This significantly reduces recovery times and dramatically increases recovered data usability. Distributed backup eliminates the installation of server agents. These new types of backup have RPOs and RTOs that can be used for critical data. http://www.sencilo.com/storage-data-deduplication.php
Replication
Replication software replicates data from server to server synchronously and asynchronously. There are incremental and CDP modes. Replicated data travels over TCP/IP networks to a remote server's disk, and then a backup client is needed to move the data to a storage device. RPO for replication is similar to the RPO for storage array remote mirroring, depending on whether it's synchronous or asynchronous. RTO can be a little faster because the DR application servers are already collocated with the DR storage.
Replication software is easy to install and operate. It can run locally and distributed, and because it's server-, storage- and infrastructure-agnostic, there are no hardware lock-ins. Replication software costs are less than those for backup software and much less than storage array-based remote mirroring. Replication has evolved to include application-aware agents, continuous protection and rollback capabilities. One important benefit to replication is data migration. Replication software simplifies the process and replicates only the data that needs to be replicated in a non-disruptive manner.
Replication software can't prevent damaged data from being replicated, and server agents must be maintained and managed. RTO can be significantly increased if there's a single DR server caching the replication from different application operating systems. In the event of a disaster, all data must be recovered and rewritten before the applications can access the data. This is similar to backup. If there's a DR replication server per operating system, the RTO rivals storage array mirroring.
Snapshot
A snapshot provides a point-in-time reference marker to data stored on a storage system. Snapshots are a way to speed RTOs. There are two primary types of snapshots: copy-on-write and split-mirror.
A copy-on-write snapshot stores changes and additions to existing data. Data recovery is rapid in case of a disk write error, corrupted file or program malfunction; however, all of the previous snapshots must be available if complete archiving or recovery is required. A split-mirrored snapshot references all the data on a set of mirrored drives where one is local and the other is local or remote. Each time the snapshot is run, it snaps the entire volume, not just new or updated data.
Snapshot is easy to install and operate. A copy-on-write snapshot provides a short RTO and a relatively slow RPO (data must still be recovered before it can be used). Split-mirror snapshots have a relatively long RPO, but they speed data recovery (RTO), duplication and data archival. One important benefit to split-mirror snapshots is that it's possible to access data offline for tasks such as data mining and offline production data testing. Some snapshot applications provide continuous snapshots and rollback capabilities based on a point in time, which offers faster RTO.
A split-mirror snapshot uses a lot of system resources and will degrade the performance of the platform it's running on while it creates the snapshot. And snapshots can't prevent a rolling disaster of snapping corrupt data.
DR hardware platforms
There are four principle hardware delivery platforms: storage array, general-purpose server, purpose-built storage appliance and the intelligent storage networking switch. The storage array is a purpose-built storage server for block or file-based storage. Many storage vendors provide optional storage array DR software, which includes synchronous and asynchronous remote mirroring and snapshot. These software products are typically specific to the individual vendor and its storage offerings. http://www.sencilo.com/storage-area-network.php
Storage array-based software usually doesn't require application server agents. The arrays are server operating system-agnostic and the DR applications run fast. They are also installed in thousands of locations, and are proven and mature.
However, the array DR applications don't work with heterogeneous storage. In general, they don't have file-level or application awareness. (Array applications with application awareness use agents.) Storage array IOPS and throughput decline while DR applications are running. And these DR applications are licensed and managed on a per-array basis. Storage array DR applications have some of the highest TCOs and, in some cases, consume more raw storage than non-array based alternatives.
General-purpose servers have very low acquisition costs and low TCO. Implementing, servicing and managing them are known quantities. Performance is tunable and DR application performance leverages ongoing improvements in server technology. Increasing performance or scalability may be as simple as buying the next-larger server, and more memory and processing power. Other advantages include support for heterogeneous storage, and application and file-system awareness. General-purpose servers require DR application agents.
The purpose-built storage appliance is nothing more than a DR application optimized server. A good way to think of the purpose-built storage appliance is to view it as a networked storage controller. It leverages technologies specifically optimized for storage DR applications. Optimization includes I/O performance, throughput, scalability and high availability (no single point of failure). TCO is definitely lower than for the storage array or intelligent server, but the purpose-built appliance is proprietary. It may also have higher initial acquisition costs and may not keep up with server technology advances.
The intelligent storage networking switch is a relatively new DR delivery platform. The storage area network (SAN) switch is the ideal system to provide DR applications because it sits between application servers and their target storage, and it also has visibility into all servers and storage targets.
There are two principle types of intelligent storage-network switches. The first essentially integrates the purpose-built storage appliance as a server blade into a Fibre Channel SAN switch or director. The second packages it as a storage software delivery platform that just happens to use switching as part of its architecture. It leverages a new technology called split path acceleration of independent data streams (SPAID). SPAID improves performance by separating the control path (the slow path) from the data path (the fast path). It enables out-of-band virtualization without requiring server agents and runs most DR software applications without any changes. Initial costs and TCO will probably be much higher than for non-integrated systems. http://www.sencilo.com/back-up-restore.php
No other platform has the DR application performance potential of the SPAID intelligent storage networking switch. SPAID switches have an inherently higher level of reliability, availability and serviceability than storage appliances because of the separation of control path from data path. Unfortunately, there are only a small handful of products that use the SPAID architecture. These include software from Incipient Inc., Maranti Networks, StoreAge Networking Technologies, Troika Networks Inc. and Veritas Software Corp. Of these, only StoreAge has a comprehensive suite of DR applications that works with all of the SPAID intelligent storage networking switches. Maranti has its own suite of DR applications, and Troika is working on a suite with tie-ins to other software-based DR applications. Incipient and Veritas are currently limited to volume management only.
Remember, a cost-effective DR strategy requires a mix of DR applications running on several platforms. Managing cost and effectiveness requires matching the value of the data to specific DR capabilities. This mix-and-match approach will reduce overall DR cost while meeting the organization's needs (see Sorting out disaster recovery options). Of course, this process must be repeated periodically to re-evaluate new technologies, products, SLA requirements and compliance regulations.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/continuity-disaster.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
Simply steps to reduce your IT's carbon footprint - May 31, 2008
Lake Mary Florida -- The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) believes CIOs should be on the frontlines of their states' environmental programs and policies. The organization, which advocates for technology policy, urges its members to take steps now to become leaders in reducing their states' carbon footprints, issuing a 17-page brief on ways to do that.
Although specific to state CIOs, NASCIO's recommendations can be employed by large organizations as well. Here are the group's tips for getting started:
Develop a plan: States that have developed green IT plans, including Missouri, Kansas and Oregon, have incorporated ideas for green efforts in nearly every aspect of their state CIOs' jurisdictions. These include purchasing equipment, recycling, and consolidating and virtualizing data centers, among other areas. Reaching out to states that have developed plans can help put you on the path toward implementing green IT initiatives.
Establish a baseline and determine a metric: Before you move a project forward, ascertain where your state is on energy consumed, greenhouse gas emitted, etc. Developing a baseline and a way to measure progress can be built into a total carbon footprint reduction plan at the outset of an initiative, For state data centers: The Green Grid and other industry groups have published a metric that can tell state CIOs how much energy is spent on the productive use of IT versus wasted on the physical infrastructure.
Track and monitor success: Once a metric is determined, continue to track and monitor a project's success rate. For example, in following a data center consolidation initiative, examining the energy usage rate prior to consolidation and then comparing that to energy usage in the aftermath of consolidation can help determine success and show the benefits accrued from the project.
Become a transformational leader: Utilize existing authority through enterprise architecture or other means to drive toward greener practices without making major jurisdictional policy changes. In other cases, state CIOs must often work to gain authority to implement these programs for their employees. For instance, despite the significant increases in employer adoption of telework, it still remains a subject of debate, particularly among older workers. In order to incorporate a telework process, state policy issues must first be resolved. By emphasizing these green benefits of telework, state CIOs may be better poised to advocate for the implementation of these initiatives.
Don't go it alone -- enlist partners: Collaborate with other agencies within your state to establish jurisdiction and authority and to gain buy-in for a green IT initiative or agenda. Reach out to other states to gather best practices and lessons learned. Engage staff members -- they also hold a stake in enterprise success and may be eager to help drive these green efforts. Tell vendors green initiatives are important to your state. Many vendors offer green components to their products and services, as well as those dedicated solely to incorporating green practices.
Reach-out to a trusted advisor like Sencilo Solutions of Lake Mary Florida that has consolidated 100's of data center thoughtout Florida. Brian McCarthy CEO and Consolidation Consultant advises companies to start small, move your under utilized file servers over to a modern NAS storage device. Most files servers use 80 to 160 giga-byte drives, today's drives are 1,000 giga-bytes with 1,500 gigs units arriving later this summer. Next look at VMware to again consolidate those old Compaq, Gateway, etc. servers in few VM servers. Sencilo has just completed a Florida based Bank and retired several hundred servers in favor of ten dual CPU, quad core units. http://www.sencilo.com/network-attached-storage.php
Leverage the circumstances: With rising energy costs -- particularly fuel prices -- on the mind of nearly every citizen and lawmaker, green initiatives will likely be met with unprecedented support. State CIOs are uniquely poised to become leaders in the green IT revolution.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-consolidation.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland, Cape Canaveral
Other Projects: DR BC Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar CX4 FAQ Storwiz Primary Storage Compression Ocarina Networks
Data De-dupe now available for your SAN - May 11, 2008
In the past few years, data reduction technologies like compression and more recently data de-duplication have become quite popular, especially for use in backup and archiving. Can this trend continue into primary storage?
In backup, especially where there is a great deal of redundant data, there has been a mass adoption of data reduction technologies. In just a few short years, data de-duplication has gone from an obscure to a well known term in the data center. Its ability to eliminate redundant segments of data has provided great benefit to backup storage and some types of archive storage. In backup data, assuming a weekly full backup, a 20X storage efficiency quotient is not uncommon.
Primary storage is different
Unfortunately, moving de-duplication into primary storage isn’t as simple as shifting its location. Following is an outline of the particular requirements of primary storage that need to be considered in planning de-duplication:
1. Primary storage is performance sensitive. Primary storage is active, and if the implementation of data de-duplication causes a performance impact on the production environment it will not be acceptable. Either the performance of the de-duplication technology must be so efficient and fast that it does not impact performance, or it has to be done out of band on files that are not immediately active.
The ideal is a near-production data set that is de-duplicated as a background process, removing the possibility of any performance impact. It would also make sense that this technology has the capability to de-duplicate and compress at different levels of efficiency --the greater the data reduction level, the greater the chance of impact on performance when the data is read back in. While it would be great to have an inline system that was fast enough to reduce the data set without impacting performance, the technology does not exist today.
2. Primary storage is unique. The other challenge to reducing data on primary storage is owing to the fact that the data is generally unique. This is a very different situation compared to backup data. In a backup, especially when doing a full backup every day or week, there is a high level of data redundancy. While production data may have some commonality -- for example, “extra” copies of the same database -- for the most part, data is not nearly as redundant as backup data or even archive data.
As disk-based archiving and disk backups become more common, they are actually causing even less redundant data to be kept on primary storage. In the past there was value in keeping a couple of extra copies of a database or set of files on primary storage “just in case.” Now those copies can be very easily sent to disk archives or disk backup devices. (This is a good thing!)
Note: The current user expectation to see storage efficiencies of 20X or more should not even be considered on primary storage. A more realistic goal might be 3X to at most 5X.
3. Primary storage is compressed. In addition to being unique, much of primary storage data is already in some pre-compressed format. Files such as images, media files, and industry-specific data sets like SEG-Y are already pre-compressed. Even the data files from the latest version of popular office productivity applications are pre-compressed. These pre-compressed files often represent the largest data set in the enterprise and the one with the fastest data growth.
To deal with this uniqueness and the pre-compressed nature of production data, a successful primary data storage reducer will have to “dig a little deeper.” While inline data reduction has the clear advantage in the backup and archive categories, production storage is an area where out-of-band management of the process might be more valuable.
Without the pressures to do data reduction so fast, time can be taken to examine a complex compound document and look for similarities within a file across the millions of files in the storage environment. This behind-the-scenes treatment of data also allows for time to be invested in understanding how specific formats -- .jpg, for example -- are stored; how that data becomes embedded into another document (for instance, a PowerPoint presentation); and how both the original data and its embedded occurrences might be best optimized for data reduction.
4. Primary storage is getting cheaper. The final challenge to data de-duplication on primary storage is the continual erosion of disk drive prices. The very condition that essentially killed HSM and later ILM may also be a detriment to the implementation of data reduction on primary storage. With 1 Tbyte SATA drives becoming available from the top-tier storage manufacturers, it may be deemed easier to simply buy larger capacity shelves of storage.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-data-deduplication.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
Best Practices for iSCSI Storage and Virtualization - May 10, 2008
IP SAN adoption is growing among users who want storage that's easy to install, configure and manage, and also comes at a price considerably less than that of Fibre Channel (FC) SANs.
Consider Dave DePillis, manager of IT operations at Allied Cash Advance in Miami, who installed an iSCSI SAN (IP SAN) two years ago to make use of the cabling, switches and network adapters installed in his Gigabit Ethernet network. "Installing iSCSI was absolutely a no-brainer, especially since I had such a small initial investment," says DePillis. He's using iSCSI to back up file shares on four to six virtual machines with Symantec Corp.'s Backup Exec 12D to a Network Appliance (Net-App) Inc. FAS2020 file server. "I have more flexibility with iSCSI since I can use my LAN switches," says DePillis.
James Santillo is another happy iSCSI user. "iSCSI is easy to use and configure," says Santillo, systems administrator at Weiss Group Inc. in Jupiter, FL. He implemented iSCSI capability by installing StorMagic's SM Series iSCSI software on some industry-standard servers equipped with Serial ATA (SATA) drives.
Just what is iSCSI?
iSCSI was adopted by businesses shortly after its ratification by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in February 2003. The protocol, which was developed within the IETF to transport SCSI commands and block-level data over an IP network between a client and a target device, runs on top of standard Ethernet adapters and over Ethernet LAN or WAN switches.
The technology is implemented by loading a software-based driver--called an initiator--on an Ethernet adapter or by adding a dedicated iSCSI host bus adapter (HBA) to the host computer. Another initiator is added to the target storage array, which allows it to serve up data that will be transported across the network via the iSCSI transport.
iSCSI initiators are available from a number of sources and are categorized by operating system type. Two of the most popular are a Windows initiator from Microsoft Corp. and a Linux initiator from SourceForge
iSCSI can also be implemented with gateway technology in which an iSCSI controller attaches to a block-level storage array, thus enabling iSCSI transport. Examples of gateway-enabled iSCSI products are available from MDI Inc. and Exagrid.
In addition, a number of vendors have joined the iSCSI and FC worlds with what's called unified or multiprotocol storage. Vendors such as Microsoft, NetApp and Pillar Data Systems market arrays or software that can attach to the Ethernet network as a NAS or iSCSI device, and to the FC SAN.
Various-sized businesses have adopted iSCSI because it's easy to install, inexpensive, behaves just like Ethernet and doesn't require special skills like FC does.
"We don't have Fibre Channel experience," says Scott Christiansen, IT director at Leo A. Daly, an architectural and engineering firm in Miami Florida. "To get the iSCSI SAN up and running was so quick and easy; it was just unbelievable." Christiansen adds that the SAN "uses the same media as the Ethernet network; it's nice in the sense that everything we buy is Category 6 cable--it works for Ethernet, it works for the IP SAN."
Applications running on iSCSI
A few years ago, many analysts predicted FC SANs would be reserved for business-critical applications such as transactional databases, while iSCSI would be deployed for less business-critical, front-office applications, file shares and Web services. But when talking to users from various-sized organizations, it's clear iSCSI deployments span mission-critical applications and less-demanding office applications.
"Our primary business app runs off a Microsoft SQL Server," says Mike Leather, network services manager at Safeway Insurance Group in Westmont, IL. "Our developers and database administrators were telling me that our disk I/O performance wasn't acceptable; that was because we were growing too big for the original solution [and] we needed to look at something else."
Leather looked at FC SAN storage, but was wary of the challenges and expenses involved. He installed an EqualLogic IP SAN (now owned by Dell Inc.) primarily for his SQL Server environment, but soon found he was using iSCSI for everything. "The whole thing started out for SQL Server and exploded," he says. "We are using the SAN for file storage, Exchange servers and our VMware environment."
Weiss Group's Santillo found that iSCSI will support all of his applications, whether they're business critical or not. "Our custom in-house customer relationship management [CRM] app, which was running on Fibre Channel, is being moved to iSCSI," he says. "We had six SQL Server apps on Fibre Channel, but [they] are now on iSCSI. And we're moving our two Exchange databases to iSCSI. The CRM app is going on the Xiotech box [which is iSCSI enabled]. We're also moving our file systems and unstructured data over to Xiotech," he says. "I needed enterprise-level reliability without the price." Santillo says his six-year-old IBM FC SAN will become "end-of-life'd. We're migrating everything off to iSCSI."
iSCSI initiators
In the early days of iSCSI deployments, almost no one expected iSCSI software initiators to prevail over dedicated iSCSI HBAs.
Adaptec Inc., Alacritech Inc. and QLogic Corp. originally marketed iSCSI adapters complete with features such as TCP Offload, which negates some of the overhead of TCP/IP. These adapters were expensive and often sold for as much as $750, which is four to five times the cost of standard Ethernet adapters.
"We use the VMware and Microsoft iSCSI [Software] Initiator, and we also use iSCSI and Fibre Channel HBAs from QLogic," says Chris Rima, IT systems supervisor at UniSource Energy Corp. in Tucson, AZ. "We've been decreasing the use of the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator because it's not as efficient as the VMware iSCSI initiator or the QLogic iSCSI HBAs. There's a higher cost associated with the QLogic HBA, but it's minimal compared to the performance gains we get."
But other users have overwhelmingly adopted the use of software initiators from Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft and the open-source community because they're inexpensive or freely downloadable from a vendor's site.
"We use the Microsoft software initiator and it works fine," says Mark Kash, IT specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Huntington, WV. "It's reliable and I haven't had any instances where it's corrupted anything," he says. "Originally, we considered using TOE cards from QLogic because we were thinking a firmware-based platform may be more reliable, but we saved money using the software-based alternative."
Microsoft's iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.06 is the most popular iSCSI initiator. It supports multipathing for load balancing and failover, 64-bit platforms and IPv6. Multipathing lets the initiator establish multiple sessions with one target, enabling load balancing and failover among multiple network adapters or HBAs.
Is performance good enough?
According to analysts, iSCSI performance would fall short of that of FC. However, end-user experiences don't bear that out. I guess when you compare the low performance manufactures like Lefthand Networks and Equal Logics but not a EMC NS or NetApp FAS
"We ran some performance tests to see the difference between iSCSI and Fibre Channel, and we saw what the industry saw: iSCSI is able to offer about 80% the performance of 2Gb Fibre Channel," says UniSource Energy's Rima. "4Gig Fibre Channel is a little bit more, but it's not substantial enough given the cost to use it."
Rima chose iSCSI because it fulfilled his "performance needs." He runs Microsoft Exchange on iSCSI, and has been able to scale his storage up but "maintain a network topology that's low cost and low impact in terms of support."
Jim Bollinger, systems and network engineer at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, has seen the same performance results as Rima. Bollinger installed Overland Storage REO disk-based appliances to back up his storage environment.
"iSCSI has been capable of doing everything we need it to do," says Bollinger. "You could take iometer.exe and take the array right up to 100Mb/sec. It's every bit as good as local SCSI and sometimes better. We've had no trouble on big files filling the pipe on our LTO-3 backup--up around 70MB/sec to 80MB/sec--and we've been backing up 7TB to 8TB a day."
10Gb/sec Ethernet
The advent of 10Gb/sec Ethernet bodes well for iSCSI. With Dynamic TCP Offload added to 10Gb/sec adapters running iSCSI, users will see the benefits--higher performance and access--of removing TCP processing from the host computer and placing it on a dedicated HBA from vendors such as Alacritech, Neterion Inc. and NetXen Inc. Dynamic TCP Offload takes advantage of Microsoft's TCP Chimney Offload technology, which offloads the TCP stack to the network card.
Bollinger, who uses QLogic HBAs that perform both TCP and iSCSI offload, says he'll migrate to 10Gb/sec Ethernet for the trunks between university buildings.
"10Gb/sec to 100Gb/sec is in our planning process and further validates our decision to deploy iSCSI," says Kash at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "I'm comfortable that iSCSI is going to take over from Fibre Channel, and [that] it will no longer be considered a low-cost, lower performing alternative."
Rima says "we can do TCP Offload with the TCP Offload on our NetApp boxes," adding that "10Gig should allow us to scale up quite a bit."
Besides the use of existing Ethernet switches, adapters and common Category 6 cabling, users have seen other advantages. "The ROI of iSCSI is hard to measure, but our complaints from users on performance issues are practically non-existent now," says Safeway Insurance Group's Leather. "That's a huge ROI. In our business, if someone has trouble with our Web site while they're writing insurance, they won't wait for us, they'll just go to the next insurance carrier. You can't measure the lost business."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-area-network.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland, Cape Canaveral
Other Projects: DR BC Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar CX4
