Consolidation
ILM, more performance, fewer drives, green storage from Compellent Technologies - February 28, 2008
February 28, 2008—Tampa and Orlando Florida Compellent has fine-tuned the way its SAN software writes data to disk drives with new techniques that could boost performance and capacity utilization while simultaneously reducing disk drive requirements by up to 80%, according to company officials.
The latest release of the company's SAN software, Storage Center 4.0, features new software applications such as Fast Track, Thin Import, and Free Space Recovery, all of which help reduce the number of disk drives required, effectively reducing total cost of ownership and energy consumption for true green storage.
The Fast Track application automatically places active data on the outer tracks of a disk drive to speed access to frequently used information like ILM. Compellent's vice president of marketing, Bruce Kornfeld, says competitive offerings place entire volumes on perimeter tracks, while Fast Track only moves frequently accessed data to the outer tracks of the drive, which accelerates performance and reduces drive requirements.
"If a storage system can differentiate between inner and outer tracks on the drive you can avoid putting inactive data or unallocated space on the outer tracks, so you get more performance out of the drives and you can buy fewer of them," says Kornfeld. "This technology can lower storage costs by 50% by reducing the number of drives vs. EqualLogic or Dell."
Also new to Storage Center 4.0, the Thin Import feature reduces disk drive requirements by converting existing data into thin-provisioned volumes as it is copied to a Compellent SAN vs. EMC or HP.
Steve Duplessie, founder and senior storage analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group, says the Thin Import technology has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of storage in Florida data centers.
"Imagine being able to pull all the over-provisioned, over-allocated, and under-utilized capacity off your old expensive arrays and instantly apply just-in-time thin provisioning to those volumes," says Duplessie. "It is tantamount to taking your 25% utilized storage infrastructure to 80%. Think of what that would mean for everything from consolidation, green storage, footprint to backup."
Storage Center 4.0 also includes a feature called Free Space Recovery, which reclaims unused space in Windows environments, and Application Optimizer, a tool that tunes the size of data transfers within the SAN to match I/O performance for different applications.
A Storage Center 4.0 QuickStart ILM Bundle is priced from approximately $57,200 with 7.2TB of capacity. vs. Lefthand Networks, Dell or EqualLogic, a single controller, and the Fast Track, Thin Import, and Free Space Recovery applications. Users can also purchase the new Storage Center 4.0 applications and controller as individual upgrades.
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 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
Data Classification and ILM - February 28, 2008
A complete information life-cycle management strategy should include integrated automation, policy creation, discovery, and data classification.
Many ILM-labeled products in the Florida market today, lack a key ingredient-data classification, or the ability to classify or categorize data according to various criteria based on subjective or objective measures as opposed to just the age or type of file. Data classification allows Tampa users to set up different groups of data, to which appropriate policies can then be applied. Doing so has potentially significant benefits: If you think your existing EMC software management tools (e.g., HSM or SRM) have helped you trim resources, just wait and see what classification can do to your bottom line. It can also help with regulatory and security requirements in Miami, St. Petersburg and Jacksonville Florida.
End users are being pounded with ILM messages from virtually all storage vendors-hardware and software alike. However, many users have implemented ILM “strategies” that amount to little more than HSM (moving data to lower-cost storage tiers) or SRM.
Although these types of implementations do provide value, the potential benefits of a complete ILM strategy are more far-reaching. In particular Compellent, NetApp and Hitachi, ILM can help organizations make better use of storage resources (e.g., improve utilization, provisioning, etc.); reduce storage-related costs; improve backup efficiency; minimize application downtime; consolidate storage resources; better meet regulatory compliance, corporate governance, and security requirements through better management of data; and lower overall IT costs, including management.
"The value of an ILM infrastructure lies in its ability to treat data, or information, according to its changing business value," states Brian McCarthy President and Storage Veteran in Lake Mary Florida. Data in an ILM environment is not treated equally. It is not arbitrarily moved from storage resource to storage resource, nor is it necessarily moved in “bulk” (i.e., a single policy isn’t applied to all data). Data that is deemed mission-critical (high business value) is treated differently from data that is deemed less critical.
Ultimately, an ILM infrastructure will continually assess data value and transparently re-assign resources in a tiered fashion as dictated by adaptive policies.
The number of storage tiers companies implement depends on the specific business demands of their organizations and on available IT and corporate resources. Storage tiers can include primary disk arrays from HDS, secondary disk storage from Data Domain, virtual tape libraries (VTLs) from Overland Storage REO, online disk archives (e.g., content-addressed storage), and LTO-4 tape.
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research shows an increasing trend among organizations of all sizes to implement disk-based data-protection tiers to improve backup-and-recovery efficiency and overall disaster-recovery preparedness. At the other end of the spectrum, users cite the high costs of primary storage as a strong impetus for implementing SATA-based secondary storage tiers.
As one end user says, “A growing problem with our snapshot solution is that it’s just too expensive to keep the snapshots on our high-end storage. We’d like to move those volumes to a midrange product or cheap ATA disk.” Another end user points to data-retention issues that were affecting backup-and-recovery strategies. “Going forward, we really only want to use tape for disaster-recovery purposes. We’ll address data retention with cheaper, more readily accessible disk technologies.”
But ILM is about more than just the movement of data among storage tiers. It’s about being able to discover and extract the business value of data; categorize or classify data types; and set policies that transparently move data among available resources in a way that makes optimum business sense. In other words, it’s about being able to classify, migrate, and investigate.
While many vendors today tackle one aspect of the ILM process (e.g., discovery via SRM or data movement via HSM), few offer integrated product suites that tackle all three. (One exception is Compellent, flexible, granular data groups).
Data classification can help organizations make the best use of their IT resources and extract maximum business value from their data.
Rather than dumping all data into a large funnel and applying generic global policies to a single data pool, classification software sorts data at a more granular level and then applies policies to the data based on the specific needs of a particular group or department.
ILM suites with data classification like Compellent in Florida not only let administrators create data groups that span multiple volumes on heterogeneous servers and storage devices, but also allow them to differentiate within these groups by establishing data classes based on the age/type/size of file, owner, or path of the data. Data is directed to the appropriate class, or tier, of back-end storage based on this information.
Like the storage groups, the storage classes also need to span different heterogeneous storage devices (e.g., primary and secondary storage tiers) and the process should be automatic. For example, IT departments should be able to implement the most-cost-effective storage platforms without having to create new data movement policies.
For example, if SATA has been designated as a secondary storage tier, the end user should be able to swap out technology (regardless of the manufacturer or type of storage) without having to create new data movement policies. The classification system should be able to adapt to the new technologies and move data appropriately among data groups.
As for regulatory or corporate compliance, organizations can use ILM with data classification tools to establish multiple data groups and then apply corporate or regulatory policies to all or some of them. Similarly, they can define which data groups need to be encrypted for security purposes and which don’t. No more blanket encrypting. Policy management is fluid, allowing users to start with simple actions but scale them over time. For example, users can write specific policies around financial data that can exclude certain types of data (e.g., quarterly financials) from moving to secondary storage tiers regardless of the age of the data or its access frequency. This differs from traditional HSM software, which moves data among tiers based on the age of the data.
Early adopters report significant application performance improvements as a result of their ILM implementations, improved recovery times, and improved resource utilization.
Some ILM suites can be used alone or in combination with e-mail archiving, content management, or other applications that lack data classification capabilities to help these applications run more efficiently. In these situations, ILM would classify and sort the application data according to pre-defined policies and move the data to appropriate storage classes, while the e-mail archiving or content management software would deal directly with the primary application.
ILM should cover the full spectrum of discovery, classification, automation, and policy creation. ESG research has shown that users are interested in purchasing storage software as bundled solutions. Users also indicate growing interest in purchasing integrated product suites that share a common interface, database, and policy engine (see figure).
ILM in its truest form provides many benefits for companies of all sizes. But being able to realize these benefits will require users to implement storage software products that do more than just move data from point A to point B.
Users need to implement a data classification product that will use more than the age of the data to help determine its value to the organization.
Sencilo Solutions is a recognized leader in the design and deployment of primary storage. Through extensive experience in the storage industry, we have developed a deep understanding of how technology can solve operational problems. The greatest challenge that organizations face is knowing which technology will help and which will not. Sencilo leverages its expertise to help customers address this challenge and select the best storage solution available for current and future needs. Our solutions include SCSI, iSCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity. With offices in Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale, Tallahassee, Cape Coral, and Pembroke Pines Florida. Primary Storage Data Compression Storwiz
The Next Steps for Server Virtualization - February 23, 2008
Server repurposing is the next wave of server virtualization.
With server virtualization rollouts well underway in IT data centers throughout Orlando, Tampa, Miami Florida, IT managers need to begin considering how best to augment these deployments. Server repurposing is key to making the most of a virtualized environments like VMware vs Virtual Iron Virtual Server.
Server repurposing is the ability to change such things as what servers are powered on, what operating system those servers are running, and how and what networks they are connected to. All of these activities can be a manual ordeal.
Simply put, server repurposing software virtualizes all of the connections that would normally require manual interaction and allows you to repurpose a server at the speed of boot time as opposed to the hours – or, more likely, days – it would otherwise take to reload software, change configurations, or move machines and cables.
Use cases
In an environment that has deployed or is planning to deploy server virtualization, server-repurposing software is a vital component in a successful rollout for ongoing operation of the virtualized environment. With server repurposing in place, the movement of servers and applications from a physical environment to a virtual environment – or even more impressively, from a virtual server environment to a physical environment – is made possible. This provides important capabilities during a server virtualization rollout.
For example, if during this Florida rollout you find an application that either does not behave well in a virtualized environment or simply consumes too much of the physical server's overall resources, then with a server repurposing tool you can very easily move this server from the virtual environment to its own physical server in as much time as it takes to boot that physical server.
"Another case may be if you need to perform maintenance on a server that is actually running the server virtualization operating system like VMware, Virutal Iron. Downing this server now also means bringing down all the virtual servers it is hosting", say Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions in Tampa Florida. Most server virtualization operating systems have some form of a High Availability (HA) solution, but this requires that another server of similar power and configuration be powered on, running the same virtual server operating system and connected to the same network. This requires additional power and cooling and, of course, the HA components of the virtualization operating system.
With server repurposing software in place, maintenance of an active server virtualization host is greatly simplified. Instead of needing to have the HA software running or suffer downing all the virtualized hosts, you can power on a cold server, load the virtualization software onto it, and start all the virtual servers and make all the right network and storage connections within in a matter of minutes.
This solution is significantly more cost effective and far more power efficient than the manual alternative. What's more, the second server need not be an idle machine, powered off. Instead of waiting for a downed primary server, you could be deploying the second server in a test environment or for some other function. Server repurposing allows the flexibility to quickly switch this server's role to a primary server hosting multiple virtual machines.
Server repurposing not only adds value in virtualized environments, it also enhances non-virtualized environments. The ability to re-deploy a server to a cold server in just minutes gives you a form of near clustering with far simpler deployment. In addition, migration to newer, more powerful servers is as simple as plugging the server into the network and storage and having the server repurposing software take over from there.
Lastly, in a lab environment, VMware and Virtual Iron vs XenSource server repurposing plays a critical role. The ability to have a test environment that can change from one test bed to another and back again can make a significant reduction in lab expenditures as well as provide great productivity out of the lab environment.
A typical test plan will hit pauses. If one has the ability to redesign the test environment quickly, other testing could be started or continued while results from the prior tests are being analyzed. Then if more testing from the prior test needs to resume, the lab can quickly switch back to the original configuration.
There are other solutions that restore images to a server, but a server repurposing tool manages all the connectivity as well, which is critical for speed and flexibility. Without the ability to manage the network and storage connections, the manual process of re-cabling and reconfiguring will typically be painful enough that you won’t switch to a new server.
So in the situation just cited, without server repurposing, a decision or compromise has to be made between slowing down the testing process or purchasing and powering additional servers to run both tests simultaneously.
Also, in a lab environment that is complimented by server repurposing, you can quickly redeploy servers into the production environment in case of emergency needs. While this can be done without server repurposing, most labs are deployed on separate networks attached to separate storage and therefore adding servers requires manual re-cabling and physical movement of hardware. Because of the amount of effort required to move a lab server into production, it rarely comes back to the lab, or because of these challenges, a new production server is purchased. With server repurposing, the process can all be done without any physical re-cabling or movement of server hardware.
Components of server repurposing
What are the components of a server repurposing solution?
Typically, there is a controller server. The server repurposing software is installed on this server and it logically sits on the “side” of your network. The controller software manages the physical and virtual hardware, software, and network configurations. The controller server must have Layer 2 access to the switches and networks of servers to be managed.
The controller also hosts the management console or user interface to the controller. This is used to configure and monitor the physical and virtual elements in a data center.
In some instances, agent software is automatically installed on every server image to be managed. The agent software communicates with the controller to obtain configuration information and provide status information. A heartbeat is maintained between the controller and agent software. If the heartbeat to a server fails, the controller will select another suitable physical or virtual machine to run that server.
Notably, the agent is typically not in the server's data path – it is present purely for management reasons. So there is little added overhead or additional risk from the possibility of agent failure.
Server repurposing and data center virtualization go hand in hand. Server repurposing, via whatever product you choose, allows for complete optimization of an investment in server virtualization and should be considered in all rollouts of the technology.
Sencilo a leader in Server virtualization deployments is the masking of server resources, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users. The server administrator uses a software application to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments. The virtual environments are sometimes called virtual private servers, but they are also known as partitions, guests, instances, containers or emulations including XenSource by Citrix, VMware or Virtual Iron. Call us at (407) 265-6293 or visit us at http://www.sencilo.com/network-server-virtualization.php
Symantec launches service option for Backup Exec 12D - February 20, 2008
Orlando Florida Symantec Corp.'s much anticipated data backup Storage as a Service (SaaS) is finally seeing the light of day. The Symantec Protection Network (SPN) will now be generally available as a standalone service, as well as a backup media option in the latest version of Backup Exec, also unveiled today.
The two new services are called Symantec Online Backup and Symantec Online Storage for Backup Exec. The Online Backup option accesses the SPN storage facility through a Web portal that includes a user's registration and account information, as well as access to provisioning tools for the service. The portal is eventually intended to support other SaaS offerings from Symantec with tabular views in a single console. Pricing for the service is $25 per month for 5 GB of storage.
Online Storage for Backup Exec allows the SPN service to be managed through the Backup Exec interface and does not require customers to install a separate software agent on the client server. The Backup Exec option lets organizations back up to tape or disk and then to the SPN as an off-site option. Pricing for this option is $38 per month for 10 GB. Users of both services can add or subtract capacity on a monthly subscription basis.
"Symantec from Orlando Florida has tried to support users through a Web-based portal before and acknowledges that the customer service portal launched after the rollout of Backup Exec 11d was a failure. According to Chris Schin, Symantec's director of product management for SPN, the circumstances around SPN's launch are less complicated than they were with the customer support portal, which launched at the same time as a new product and a new licensing policy. The team that runs SPN also has experience managing a large multitenant infrastructure with Symantec's existing managed security services, he added.
"Symantec began beta testing SPN last April. The service was supposed to have been available before the end of 2007 but languished as rivals EMC Corp. and CommVault Systems Inc. launched their own data backup SaaS offerings last month, says Brian McCarthy of Sencilo Solutions in St. Petersburg Florida.
Schin said Symantec originally intended to launch a standalone service but decided to hold off until it was integrated with existing products. "We heard strong feedback from a significant number of customers that they wanted us to keep their current environments intact," he said. "We decided to reallocate our resources and work toward launching two services."
Uncertainty over how to position SaaS may also have played a part, according to Eric Burgener, a Taneja Group analyst. "One of the strategic concerns for Symantec has always been how to grow revenue for NetBackup and Backup Exec without letting them cannibalize each other," he said. "There are additional potential problems SaaS presents to license-based revenue streams."
Backup Exec 12 -- Incremental updates
Symantec's Windows data backup software is getting a minor facelift to go with the new online backup option. "These updates aren't what I'd consider a major leap forward," Burgener said. "There are some incremental improvements and integration with some previous acquisitions."
The updates include a more granular restore capability for Microsoft Exchange. Backup Exec now allows mailbox-level recovery of data from one backup, akin to CDP. In previous versions of Backup Exec, mailbox-level restores required users to make two backups of the same information. According to Symantec's Backup Exec director of product management Brian Greene, some customers reported that granular Exchange backups took 10 times as long as regular backups.
The new version also allows customers to back up Exchange, SharePoint and Active Directory from a snapshot, rather than the production host, and allows backups to be sent to destinations other than the media server, such as a SAN or removable hard drive.
"Not having to back up Exchange separately is a huge advantage," said Nick Joseph, network administrator for business systems certification registrar Orion Register Inc. Joseph said full backups take about 16 hours in tests with version 12. Prior to this release, his backups took up to three days.
Backup Exec 12 can now back up the Enterprise Vault data archive and use Symantec's ThreatCon security threat monitoring system to trigger automatic backups. Backup Exec is also the first data backup application to be certified with Microsoft Windows Server 2008.
Symantec officials said there are no planned changes to Backup Exec's licensing for VMware, which currently requires a backup software agent for each guest host. Joseph said this is the most pressing item left on his wish list.
"VMware backup doesn't seem to be as complete [with Backup Exec] as with NetBackup," Joseph said. Symantec added support for granular virtual machine restores for its NetBackup 6.5 enterprise backup application last June, but that remains missing from its Windows-based Backup Exec product.
"I'd like the ability to just back up VMs and restore them like any other server," Joseph said.
System Recovery 8 -- Consolidation to come?
Symantec made the same upgrades to its Backup Exec System Recovery 8 bare metal restore application as it did to Backup Exec 12, except for the SPN integration. "We wanted to have these features available for people who use just one product," Greene said.
Asked about the possibility of merging the two products into one, Greene said, "That's a good question, but it's something I can't talk about today."
Sencilo Solutions is a recognized leader in the design and deployment of primary storage. Through extensive experience in the storage industry, we have developed a deep understanding of how technology can solve operational problems. The greatest challenge that organizations face is knowing which technology will help and which will not.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-protection.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
Server virtualization can have big disaster recovery payoff - February 18, 2008
While most of the buzz around server virtualization in general, and VMware Infrastructure in particular, have been about server consolidation and greening the data center, disaster recovery may be the IT area where server virtualization technology has the biggest impact.
"Disaster recovery (DR) planning for mission-critical applications historically called for replicating the data for these applications and having servers standing by at the DR site ready to take over at a moment's notice," says Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions, in Tampa Florida.
Most organizations can save money by virtualizing these standby servers. A single offsite server can act as the standby domain controller, SQL server, Exchange server and several more. Not only can you save the cost of all those physical servers, but also the rack space and power charges from your DR site.
Saving money and still providing the same level of protection that your old expensive physical server solution could is a good thing. But the real payoff is improving the recovery time of the applications that you wouldn't dedicate a standby server to. Most organizations soon realize they can move some applications up from the secondary tier to having standby servers, since the standby servers are essentially free.
Solving bare metal restore to different hardware
In the "old days," secondary applications were limited to restore from tape as their protection model, resulting in multiday recovery points and recovery times. Even if you were replicating the application's data, it wasn't always possible to get an identical server to restore the application backup to. You either had to go down the dank dark path of a bare metal restore to different hardware, or pursue a new OS and application install, all the while hoping you had a record of all the patches needed to mount that database.
The "different hardware" problem is solved because virtual machines are indeed virtual machines -- they all run with the same set of drivers and can't tell if they've been moved from one host to another. In addition, virtual machine snapshots from VMware or even Microsoft's Virtual Server or Hyper-V are just files, so restoring a virtual machine is just a matter of mounting the files on a new host.
"Rather than relying on tape transfers, you can schedule snapshots of your virtual machines and transfer them to the DR site over the replication link. And if your network guys can prioritize traffic properly, it won't interfere with real-time replication", say McCarthy from Sencilo in Florida.
The real fun comes when a disaster is declared and you have to start switching over to the standby servers. Because the suspenders-and-belt crowd set up their DR infrastructure to be able to take over at full speed the minute the switch was thrown, their DR site has lots of compute horsepower. (Of course lots of horsepower means lots of money.)
The more frugal companies take advantage of VMotion, which moves virtual servers from one host to another dynamically while they're still running and, in addition, DR providers like SunGard's "shared server" offerings. With shared servers, you pay a few shekels to the DR provider every month for the right to claim servers out of their stock at the DR site when you declare an emergency. Once you declare that, you get the servers for your exclusive use and can install VMWare ESX on them.
Then, once the new hosts are up, you can use VMotion (or even better VMware DRS) tol dynamically allocate virtual servers to hosts based on load and to mount your virtual servers on the new hosts. This will boost your application performance. . .probably before your users can get to their new workplaces to use the applications.
Sencilo a leader in Server virtualization deployments is the masking of server resources throughout Florida, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users. The server administrator uses a software application to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments. The virtual environments are sometimes called virtual private servers, but they are also known as partitions, guests, instances, containers or emulations. Call us today at (407) 265-6293 or visit our website http://www.sencilo.com
VMware backup using Veritas NetBackup and DeDupe VTL - February 15, 2008
As server virtualization assumes a greater role in the enterprise, administrators face a proliferation of VMware machines residing on the same physical server. Each VMware machine uses a portion of the physical machine's processing, memory and I/O resources. Ideally, server virtualization provides a means of increasing hardware utilization, says Brian McCarthy VMware Consultant and President of Sencilo Solution of Orlando Florida.
But as more "logical" servers are consolidated into fewer "physical" computer systems, it's important to protect each VMware machine's data against failure or loss. Virtual server backups using NetBackup or Commvault are the key to providing this protection. This article examines how virtual server backup can be achieved using a mix of traditional backup techniques and dedupe VTLs. It also highlights important deployment issues, Sencilo has sum 50 VMware installations throughtout Florida.
What is virtual server backup?
A virtual machine is a complete logical environment existing as a separate entity on a physical server. Each virtual machine is treated and perceived as if it is physical. In fact, a user cannot tell the difference between a real and virtual machine. A data center may host thousands of virtual machines running on only a fraction of that much HP or Dell hardware, and this presents a serious problem for storage or backup administrators. "Data loss on a virtual server can be just as catastrophic as data loss on a physical server, so every virtual server must be backed up as part of a company's backup regimen," says Sencilo's manager of Professional Services, Andrew Mapp.
Virtual server backups can be accomplished using a traditional approach with conventional backup software, like Veritas NetBackup or new comes like Unitrends and CommVault. The backup software can be simple to installed and configured on each virtual machine, and backups will run normally to any conventional backup target, including Overland LTO-4 tape drives, virtual tape libraries like Quantum, or Overland (VTL) or Nexsan disk storage. "That's probably the most popular way that people do it today because it's familiar," says Brian McCarthy. "It ensures a consistent backup; it will give you the granular recovery that you're looking for, and it's application-specific."
However, applying traditional backup tactics to virtual server backups does have drawbacks. The most significant problem is resource contention. Backups demand significant processing power, and the added resources needed to execute a backup may compromise the performance of that virtual machine and all virtual machines running on the system. "Don't go for 100% utilization," says McCarthy. Leave some server resources unused to accommodate backup tasks and stagger backup processes so that only one VMware machine is being backed up on any physical system at one time or use a backup appliance from Unitrends.
Backup process more costly in virtualized environments
There are far more installations when the backup software is installed on every virtual machine, and this can make your backup process far more costly. Also, traditional disk-to-disk (D2D) backups will copy programs and application data but do not necessarily capture the entire virtual machine state. This may be fine if your only goal is to preserve an application, such as a database, but a failed virtual machine may need to be recreated and reconfigured from scratch before the backup can be restored.
Virtualization-specific tools, such as VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) or Microsoft's Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), interface directly with their respective virtualization platform and capture point-in-time snapshots of the entire VMware's Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) or Microsoft's Virtual Hard Drive (VHD). Virtual server backup tools like, VCB or Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), can capture the entire virtual machine state quickly, and the virtual machine typically does not need to be quiesced or taken offline,say Mapp. Not only does this allow for fast, complete system restorations, but complete snapshots can also be uploaded to new virtual machines, allowing system administrators to "clone" virtual servers on demand.
The downside to virtual server files is a potential loss in granularity. With traditional backups, it is easy to restore a single application or data file. When there is one single VMDK or VMM file, you typically have to restore the entire snapshot in order to recover, even if only one file is lost or corrupted. "Some snapshot vendors have figured out how to take that image-level backup and break it down into the granular single files that people need to recover," Whitehouse says, "Not everyone has done that though." Companies like Data Domain often try and mislead the end-user with a "it's all wonderful presentation, so keep your VMware Consultant or trusted reseller near by", says McCarthy.
Implementing virtual server backups
Storage space poses a particular challenge for virtual machine files. The virtual snapshot is always seen as a new file, so it is backed up in its entirety, regardless of how much data has actually changed since the last snapshot. Snapshots will continue to use the full backup window and consume the same amount of disk/tape space. Data deduplication from companies like Quantum or Overland Storage, also called single-instance storage, can help to reduce these storage demands. Deduplicating at the storage system doesn't shrink the backup window because data still must be transferred across the network prior to deduplication. Experts suggest deduplicating through an appliance or at the source to save backup media while minimizing the backup window.
Virtual server backups have no specific affinity for backup targets. Traditional backups can go to LTO tape, a Quantum VTL or other disk systems like Nexsan as they do now, though most performance-minded users will backup to some form of disk storage first, then offload the backup to tape later, this known as D2D2T. VCB or VMM backups are almost universally sent to disk, then later replicated to offsite disk storage or sent to tape. Backup media is then retained or stored exactly the same way as conventional backups. However, retention periods should be evaluated carefully; it may not be necessary to save every snapshot for a prolonged period, Sencilo has worked with hundreds of companies recommanding the correct methods to use. But consult your local retention experts or legal counsel for their recommendations.
Virtual server backups should also be verified and tested periodically to ensure that the required suite of data has been captured adequately, but this typically involves restoring the backup to another virtual server and verifying normal operation. For some shops that perform frequent restorations, the "testing" process is ongoing; backups are tested each time a file or application needs to be restored. Other virtualized shops have auxiliary machines available for testing purposes, which allows administrators to periodically test backups without taking the original production machines offline.
Companies performing virtual server backups
For Orange County Library in California a Sencilo customer, fulfillment business generates a great deal of customer data. Close to 20 terabytes (TB) of production data and another 10 TB of development and test data is spread across several Compellent platforms running under VMware Inc.'s Infrastructure 3.5 virtualization software. Virtualization has proven its benefit to the organization. "The No. 1 reason [benefit] is efficient use of resources," says Dan Mawn, network engineer for Orange County. "Secondary reasons include ease of backups and disaster recovery."
Mawn backs up virtual machines using VCB operated in concert with Veritas NetBackup software. Virtual server backups are performed nightly along with the entire backup process and are also performed on-demand. The entire backup process takes about 6-to-7 hours each night, but with about 160 servers to contend with, half of them virtual servers, it's difficult to say exactly how long a single virtual machine backup takes.
In addition to protecting existing virtual servers, Mawn also uses virtual snapshots to clone new servers, "You can use VCB to actually save a copy of a virtual machine "hot" then you can restore it to another VMware machine and bring it up as a clone of the first one," he says.
An Overland Storeage Disk Library (REO) provides virtual tape support. "The backup application backs up to that and also to actual [IBM] tape, so we go to both," Mawn says, noting that the current LTO-4 tape drives will soon be upgraded to dual LTO-4. Although Mawn has never needed to restore a virtual machine failure, the restoration process has been thoroughly proven and is tested monthly or even more frequently.
Mawn notes that virtualization has proven reliable, since the resolution of some early difficulties. "We had virtual machines lock up when VCB is executed that we attributed to outdated VMware drivers and tools, he says. With that updated, those virtual machines haven't had a problem since." This underscores the importance of software maintenance and version control in the virtual environment.
Next to efficiency, flexibility in integrating infrastructures is probably the most important benefit gained from server virtualization. For information services business Miami-Dade, the flexibility afforded by Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 proved critical when integrating data centers. "We were moving an acquired company and their technology infrastructure into our data center, and the virtual environment was really the only way that we could be flexible enough to tackle the integration in a timely manner," says George Bush, manager of information security and compliance.
Once the benefits of storage virtualization became clear, the entire infrastructure was migrated to a virtual server environment, supporting more than 600 virtual machines in production (80%-85% of the production environment). In addition there are about 400 virtual machines in disaster recovery, another 400 virtual machines in development. "It's a hardware-agnostic point of view," Bush says. "Any platform that runs a Windows server can support full virtualization and really utilize your hardware to its fullest potential." Today, Miami-Dade operates about 60 TB of storage on an Pillar Data SAN.
Bush uses the VMM utility to manage and back up Microsoft virtual machines. Not only does VMM help to configure and optimize the virtual environment, it also creates backup snapshots of the VHD file. George Bush also uses VMM to create standard server "images" that speed the deployment of new virtual servers, while helping to prove the compliance of software/driver versions across the environment. "Instead of configuring a new server from scratch, which can take two-to-four hours, just take and copy the hardened image that you've already created and patched correctly up to the host machine -- that takes 10-to-15 minutes," he says.
Almost all virtual machine backups are performed through VMM, though there are still some manual backup processes to accommodate mission-critical processes that have not yet been virtualized. The actual time needed to back up a virtual server depends on the size of the VHD file and the bandwidth available to pass the backup data to the target. Commvault backups are always sent to a Overland REO disk first, then offloaded to Overland NEO tape as a separate process.
The ability to configure disaster recovery sites virtually anywhere, where power and Internet access are available, was an important benefit, according to Bush. "Virtualization makes the whole disaster recovery 'mess' actually something that is manageable," he says. "And VMM helps with configuration management, update migration and so on." VMM provides load-balancing recommendations that can help to optimize the number of virtual machines on each particular server, but we get a lot of credit to Sencilo Solution for getting us there.
The future of virtual server backups
Storage volumes will continue to grow, and this will inevitably lead to a demand for more network storage for virtual machine backups. This will also usher in greater application awareness and data deduplication with virtual server backups. The real challenge will be to implement deduplication without compromising virtual machine performance. "If you run dedupe on a VMware, you'll put more workload on the VM [CPU]," Schulz says. In the near term, an external data deduplication appliance may be necessary to achieve necessary performance goals. There are other performance issues with server virtualization that will be increasingly addressed using optimized hardware chipsets, such as Intel Corp's vPro Processor Technology and Q35 Express Chipset.
While conventional backups will rely upon Veritas backup software for proper restoration, affording a small amount of native security, virtual machines are complete self-standing system snapshots that are far simpler to restore than a backup volume. Encryption is another component in the virtual backup environment, but few virtualization users have made security a major priority yet, say Sencilo's McCarthy, look at Decru and Neoscale.
Ultimately, the future of such tools remains murky. Experts note that virtualization vendors may shift the backup burden to third-party developers. "I think the first step for them [virtualization vendors] would be to create APIs for backup vendors," Whitehouse says, noting that backup vendors could then build new applications or add features to their existing backup products that would utilize those APIs to provide better and more refined backup products.
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, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale, Tallahassee, Cape Coral, and Pembroke Pines.
Key words: 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 LTO Backup Exc NetBackup Legato 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
Storage architecture choices: SAN, NAS or DAS? - February 15, 2008
Storage area networks (SANs), which were once available only to large enterprises that could afford to pay steep premiums for the best storage, are increasingly moving downstream. "SANs combine the benefits of shared storage with those of direct-attached storage (DAS), and newer technologies make them affordable even for small businesses, says Storage Vetern and President of Sencilo Solutions of Orlando Florida. This article will explore why storage area network (SAN) devices may be right for you.
Storage acronyms: SAN, NAS and DAS
The three main ways of connecting storage to servers are SANs, network-attached storage (NAS) and DAS. With DAS, which is the most basic form of the three, the drive connects directly to the server and is often even in the same enclosure. Because DAS is simple to install and requires no large, IT-level planning, it's still what many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) rely on, said McCarthy.
SANs and NAS both separate data storage from servers, allowing servers to share those resources. NAS devices have their own file system, so they work best as file servers, that because their OS is designed to handle file data very quickly. SANs give block-level access and appear to computers as normal drives, so they work better for applications such as databases. Companies start needing databases once they reach about 50 users, which is why even small businesses are starting to look into storage area networks, McCarthy said. SANs handle block data well, where as file data is better off on a NAS systems. Most modern SAN are designed to handle both SAN and NAS unlike older EMC or Open Source units from Equal Logic or Lefthand Networks that require a file server. Look for units from NetApp, HDS or MDI in which you can consolidate both file and block data, and retire older File Servers.
Benefits of SANs
Why storage area networks? Depending on how many servers your client has, a SAN can offer significant advantages over a DAS array for each server. Consolidating storage devices will save your clients money by allowing them to buy capacity according to what the entire company needs, as opposed to having each server work with its own disk array, much of which may go unused. Provisioning tools can let your client dynamically allocate space -- instead of giving a server 100 GB in anticipation of growth in a few years, an IT manager can give it 25 to 50 GBs and increase that as needed, McCarthy said, this is offer known as Thin Provisioning.
Because SANs can consist of several physically separate drives or arrays, they also offer replication and disaster recovery features. For instance, you can set up two SANs with automatic, real-time replication. If the primary SAN goes down for any reason, the system will automatically fail over to the second.
SANs also complement server virtualization. One of the features of some virtualization software is the ability to move images between physical servers on the fly, without downtime. This requires the two servers to share the same storage device -- both so they can access the same data and to serve as a medium for the virtual machine (VM) image.
Cost of SANs
A SAN can works on a Fibre Channel (FC) network. The wires may be either fiber-optic or copper, but since even the copper FC wires supporting 2 to 4 Gb/sec transfers are different than Ethernet cables, all FC-connected SANs require a separate, dedicated network.
Fibre Channel equipment is expensive; the wires, which are often optical, can cost $100 to $200 each, and each device's FC adapter will cost another $400 to $1,000, said Henry Baltazar, storage analyst for The 451 Group in San Francisco. This extra infrastructure makes up the bulk of the cost for SANs that use FC, which is why storage area networks have traditionally been reserved for larger companies while smaller companies are going with iSCSI SANs.
But iSCSI, a variant on the SCSI interface that runs over IP, can eliminate those costs by connecting your SAN devices over your existing LAN. Your client will still need to make a few adjustments, such as configuring a virtual LAN (VLAN) for the SAN drives to ensure that they get all the bandwidth they need; your role should include helping the client with this implementation work. An entry-level iSCSI-attached SAN can cost as little as $10,000 including implementation services, McCarthy said. "I expect iSCSI will soon ship more units then FC-based unit, since iSCSI is far easy to run then a complex Fibre Channel ones".
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
How to Plan Your Disk-Based Backup with NAS or VTL - Understanding Your Requirements - February 12, 2008
Data growth is a fact of life for IT departments according to Sencilo Solutions CEO Brian McCarthy. As your business grows, so does the amount of data it generates, and the amount of storage capacity needed to properly retain the data cascades out of control. How to Plan Your Disk-Based Backup with NAS or VTL—Understanding Your Requirements Organizations of all sizes face the dilemma of how to backup increasing amounts of data while reducing the hassles of traditional tape-based systems. Some of the key player in the NAS space are Quantum, Data Domain and Exagrid, while the VTL players are Hitachi (HDS), Sepaton and Quantum.
In response, organizations are implementing new solutions using disks as the backup medium. The backup server copies the data to a disk-based system in the data center. This means that backups are faster, restores are more reliable and you will not have to deal with the hassles of tape management. Disk-based (D2D) backup ensure better backup and restore performance and long-term data integrity, availability and security of your data. This makes disk-based backup one of the hottest topics in the data storage industry today.
When considering a disk-based backup system, there are many branches in the decision tree to consider when selecting the right solution for a given environment. Companies with 1TB to 20TB of data tend to set up disk-based backup as a NAS (network-attached storage) target. NAS is hard disk storage that is set up with its own network address rather than being attached to the department computer that is serving applications to a network's workstation users. The NAS device is attached to a local area network (typically, an Ethernet network) and assigned an IP address.
Those companies with more than 20TB of data, in a Fibre Channel environment, tend to set up disk-based backup with a VTL (virtual tape library) interface fronting the disk. Fibre Channel is especially suited for connecting computer servers to shared storage devices and for interconnecting storage controllers and drives.
To understand the differences between the NAS and VTL options, it's important to keep the following factors in mind:
Onsite Disk-based Backup—Short Term Retention
The first decision is how much retention you will put on disk at the primary backup location. If you plan to keep a week or two of retention onsite, on disk, then any standard disk will work. If you are keeping short retention onsite, then any standard backup storage solution will meet the requirement. The three most common options are:
- S-ATA, SCSI or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)-connected disk set up as a disk volume
- Ethernet-connected NAS server with disk
- Fibre Channel connection with VTL (virtual tape library) software fronting the storage
- A VTL provides the benefits of disk storage in a system that emulates a tape library to existing backup software.
Onsite Disk-based Backup—Longer Term Retention
If you plan to keep four or more weeks of onsite retention, or years of offsite retention, then the quantity of standard disk becomes too hard to manage and too costly to afford. Therefore, data reduction techniques that only store unique data (i.e. do not store the redundant data) can retain larger amounts of backup history using a small fraction of the disk required when using standard disk.
In this case, you should consider a disk-based backup system with built-in data deduplication technologies. Data deduplication systems employ a data reduction technique that identifies common "chunks" of bytes among multiple data files, and only stores these chunks once. "Using this method, you can store data in less disk space, which is the case with Data Domain, and why it is falling out of favor with customers and partners", says McCarthy of Sencilo.
There are two interfaces to data deduplication systems and two types of data deduplication in the next level down the decision tree. The interfaces are NAS and VTL. The two data deduplication methods are byte-level data deduplication and block-level de-duplication.
Byte-level data deduplication compares one backup to another, and only stores the bytes that change from backup to backup. Block-level data deduplication breaks the backup job into 8KB blocks. The blocks are compared via their hashes to find duplicate blocks, and then only unique blocks are stored. Both methods achieve approximately the same data reduction.
To summarize, the options available for data deduplication in disk-based backup systems are:
- NAS with byte-level data deduplication
- VTL with byte level data deduplication
- NAS with block-level data deduplication
- VTL with block-level data deduplication
In selecting the best approach for your organization, decide if you prefer NAS or VTL. This is typically determined by the environment for storage. An Ethernet environment will choose NAS and a Fibre Channel environment will typically choose VTL.
The final branch is to decide which kind of NAS or VTL disk-based backup system with data deduplication is preferred. The key considerations in making this decision are the following:
- How the system is supported, managed and deployed
- The desired backup and restore performance of the system
- How the system grows and scales
- How the system can size to the environment
- The cost of the system
- By understanding your backup retention requirements, your current storage environment, the different approaches to data de-duplication, as well as the key considerations for evaluating disk-based backup systems, you will be able to make an informed decision and select the correct system to meet the data backup and recovery requirements of your environment.
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 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
With Expert Guidance and Consulting from Sencilo Solutions, Advance Search Selects MDI iSCSI SAN for its High Performance and Ease of Management. - February 9, 2008
Just two weeks after Dell acquisition of iSCSI SAN maker EqualLogic Corp., one of its server customers put a SAN from EqualLogic competitor MDI into production. "If we'd waited two weeks, would it have changed our decision? Hard to tell," said Thomas Berry, Director of operations for equipment vendor Advance Search. "I know now there may be further integration [with Dell and EqualLogic], but at the time I didn't."
We looked at a lot of different Dell SAN products, we previously use an EMC Clariion arrays that it had purchased through Dell, but tired of trying to manage Fibre Channel. "I don't know if we just didn't understand how the EMC SAN was supposed to work, but it seemed like we were always having to open help tickets and get professional services engagements to help us work out problems," Berry said.
Since EMC was the incumbent vendor in his environment, Berry evaluated EMC's new AX4-5 array when considering a new SAN, but said he wanted a 100% iSCSI SAN. The AX4-5 is available as Fibre Channel or iSCSI. "It didn't seem like a purely iSCSI SAN to me," he said.
Advance Search also evaluated an EqualLogic PS Series SAN, and Berry said the MDI Express Stor had so many more features then the Equal Logic unit. "We did an evaluation matrix, and when we totaled up all the points, they were the clear winner," he said. "MDI Express Stor have native CIFS, NFS and iSCSI protocals, in other words we got to retire some 12 file servers using the Express Stor, something the Equal Logic can only dream of doing. What tipped the balance was has a familiar Windows Server look and feel so training is a snap, the Equal Logic unit like other Dell products try to sell you week long training which adds to the TCO of the SAN. Our support staff was already familiar with Windows so the choice was a no brainer, said Berry.
Sencilo showed us how the Equal Logic units requirements twice the disk space (RAID 50) to get half the performance of the MDI unit, along with its non-Active-Active design, we needed high-availability, not the dated design from Equal Logic. Brian McCarthy, the President and Storage Veteran said "selling against Equal Logic is more about pointing the features of a Microsoft based Storage Server vs. Equal Logic who uses a dated Open Source O/S, which explains why upgrades and bug fixes can take months to resolve." McCarthy went on to say, "had Dell not purchased Equal Logic it would of been road kill for Microsoft and it's Windows Storage Server partners."
The MDI SAN will eventually hold 35 TB capacity, but Berry admitted the company is not far along in rolling it out. Only about 10 TB of SQL, file and print, and Exchange data have been migrated to the SAN. The migration is going on while Advance Seach is also rolling out VMware server virtualization, upgrading to SQL 2005 and Exchange 2007, and creating SQL and Exchange server clusters. "We like to do a lot of things in parallel here," he said.
The virtual iSCSI SANs have also not yet seen the light of day. "Our DR facility is at SunGard in Florida," he said. "Once we get the production SAN rolled out, we'll do our first migration of data to the DR server at our primary site and ship it to them, rather than trying to do the first upload over the wire."
We owe a great deal of thanks to Brian McCarthy and his team for showing us the true cost of ownership of a Equal Logic SAN vs. the MDI Express Stor iSCSI SAN. Sencilo will be a long-term trusted partner for years to come.
Sencilo Solution is a Florida based integrator specializing in storage, networking and security solutions Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers.
Each product has been carefully selected for its unique value to a solution or deployment. Sencilo sales and technical team is thoroughly trained in all of our major products and are able to provide value in up front architecture planning and product selection. Our technical expertise is known throughout the storage, networking and security industry.
Server and Storage Virtualization: A Complete Solution for High-Availability and Recovery - January 26, 2008
Server virtualization is an important step toward improving overall IT efficiency. Virtual machine technology reduces the complexity and management of disparate server hardware and OS platforms. Nonetheless, server virtualization is only one component in a truly virtual enterprise infrastructure. Another critical component is storage virtualization.
Similar to server virtualization, storage virtualization creates a logical layer of storage from physical storage devices. The full benefits of server virtualization can only be realized in combination with a virtual storage layer that works in conjunction with and complements the virtual server layer. For example, dynamic virtual machine failover, a key benefit of leading server virtualization solutions, can facilitate disaster recovery. It is incomplete, however, without dynamic storage failover, a storage virtualization feature. Implementing storage virtualization, in other words, extends the benefits of an investment in server virtualization and builds upon them, providing simplified storage management, improved storage utilization and application performance, a bullet-proof disaster recovery solution, and a diminished need for proprietary vendor solutions.
Business Drivers for Storage Virtualization
The business drivers for storage virtualization are much the same as those for server virtualization. CIOs and IT managers must cope with shrinking IT budgets and growing client demands. They must simultaneously improve asset utilization, use IT resources more efficiently, ensure business continuity and become more agile. In addition, they are faced with ever-mounting constraints on power, cooling and space.
Key Benefits of Storage Virtualization
Storage virtualization provides companies with tools to address the underutilization of resources and the poor economics of silo-based storage, as well as the flexibility to respond to changing business requirements. In a storage virtualized environment, organizations achieve the full benefits of consolidation, improved resource usage and comprehensive disaster recovery. Storage virtualization also dramatically reduces power and cooling costs.
The Intelligent Network Switch: A New Approach to Storage Virtualization
Intelligent network switches with built-in storage management services, have changed the virtual storage paradigm from a model of expensive proprietary vendor lock-in to one of low-cost open support for total storage flexibility. Open storage virtualization enables IT managers to improve overall storage utilization by allowing capacity from any storage array to be combined in centrally managed, virtual storage pools. IT managers can dynamically reduce capacity for applications that are not growing and reuse that capacity for those which are. This can eliminate the need to procure new storage or, at a minimum, delay acquisition.
Intelligent network switches also enable organizations to easily link storage hardware and software solutions from multiple storage vendors, removing the burden of proprietary vendor lock-in and simplifying tasks such as data replication, mirroring and data migration. For example, when a storage network is comprised of disparate systems, even from the same vendor, data migration is time-consuming and application-disruptive. In a typical scenario, the application is taken offline, data is moved to tape and then restored. Intelligent integrated network switches permit data to be migrated in real time, from any storage array to any other storage array, without taking applications offline. Storage virtualization utilizing intelligent switches provides non-disruptive online migration that eliminates downtime and greatly reduces administrators' involvement in data or server migration.
Other benefits include a common set of management, provisioning and replication tools that lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) by reducing the number of tools and people necessary to manage storage and eliminating the requirement to purchase multiple licenses for every storage device.
The Value of Incorporating Storage Virtualization with Server Virtualization
Storage virtualization complements server virtualization by providing easy, centralized management, flexible provisioning, and improved disaster recovery. With disaster recovery, storage virtualization enables one storage system to fail over to another storage system with minimum disruption. However, with most storage virtualization solutions the failover is not instantaneous and manual intervention is required. Therefore, the benefit of overall instantaneous system recovery is lost. A network-based intelligent switch architecture, as depicted in the illustration below, addresses this discrepancy between the server and storage, providing instantaneous failover.
In the event of a complete disaster at one location, the virtual server there fails over to the server at the remote location without any interruption. If the primary storage system is affected by the same disaster, the other dynamically responds to the virtual server. This ensures zero hours RTO (recovery time objective) and zero hours RPO (recovery point objective).
The new generation of open virtualization solutions delivered via an intelligent switch with storage management services provides enterprise-class disaster recovery without the expenses imposed by proprietary storage architectures. Other benefits of storage virtualization include the ability to store multiple copies of virtual machine images for high availability and the ability to simplify physical storage infrastructure upgrades. Storage virtualization and server virtualization work together to solve the complex equation of a truly virtual infrastructure.
Conclusion
Server virtualization is changing the face of the server world with simple and effective tools to deploy and manage virtual servers. The same is now true for storage virtualization, using intelligent network switches that allow IT managers to realize more complete value from their virtual infrastructures. By enabling more efficient use of resources, eliminating vendor hardware and software dependencies, delivering seamless disaster recovery, and offering an attractive TCO, intelligent network switches with integrated storage services provide the best approach to storage virtualization. Combined with server virtualization, this new evolution allows customers to deploy a comprehensive virtual IT infrastructure, with virtual servers and virtual storage used to overcome the limitations of their physical counterparts.
Sencilo Solutions specializes in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery with experience consultants with a combined experience of 25 years, working with companies of all sizes. We can be reached at (407) 265-6293 or visit us at http://www.sencilo.com
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 Primary Storage Data Compression Storwiz
