Data Protection
How do Spam Filters work - March 13, 2008
Filters make mistakes -- here's how to make sure your legitimate email gets through.
These days, spam filters on personal computers and corporate networks are absolutely necessary. This software is designed to snare presumably unwanted incoming messages based on a variety of characteristics, including the sender's email address, words in the message subject line or even in the body of the message.
Most of the time, spam filters work. Of the 1,409 million inbound emails scanned by Barracuda Networks Anti-Spam , in December, 1.250 million were intercepted as spam. That's a global spam ratio of one in every 1.3 emails.
Yet, spam filters are not perfect. Sometimes, they snare perfectly legitimate messages, such as a "cold call' email a sales executive might send to a potential client, or even a message from a potential customer to a corporation's vice president of purchasing.
"The problem [of spam filters catching legitimate email] is getting worse, because companies are angry with the amount of email that is being sent to them," says Adam Sarner, customer relationship management analyst with Gartner, Inc., Stamford, Ct. "As a result, enterprises tend to block [messages] first and ask questions later. Spam is that bad that businesses and consumers are much more willing than they used to, to pass up a [legitimate] email or two rather than letting it all through."
Sarner likens spam filters turned to maximum protection mode to a car alarm turned too high -- and set to go off even when an innocent pedestrian walks in the general vicinity of the vehicle.
When a spam filter working within an email program sees a suspicious incoming message, the filter will either delete the message entirely, or place it in a special spam folder the recipient is free to browse if and when he is so inclined.
The occurrences of legitimate email being grabbed by spam filters is so acute, the phenomenon has a name: false positives. In a common false positive scenario, a legitimate business email could wind up in a user's voluminous spam file, 65th in a list of 217 solicitations for everything from bargain real estate to body enhancement potions.
And, if your perfectly sincere message is surrounded by such unseemly entreaties, it will probably never get read.
"False positives are definitely a problem," says John Levine, author of "Fighting Spam For Dummies." He's also a spam expert who has testified in front of U.S. Senate and Federal Trade Commission committees studying the issue of unwanted commercial email.
Unfortunately, spam filters seem to have an anxiety attack when they encounter legitimate emails dressed up with pretty graphics. Since porn, free travel and other spammers like to use graphics, you, as a legitimate marketer, suffer at least some guilt by association.
"Spam filters tend to work with formatting rather than words," says Brian McCarthy, Security Expert and CEO of Sencilo Solutions of Miami Florida. "Some companies attempt to pre-format their emails in HTML with a logo and letterhead. The more you have of it, the more it brings alarm bells," and creates false positives.
Tony Skoll, a email filtering customer of Barracuda Networks, believes an enterprise can minimize or even eliminate the problem of false positives by implementing a server-based filtering solution that leaves the final decision about what is or is not spam up to each end-user. "People are getting fed up with the hack-and-slash approach toward [spam management]," he says. "Server-based solutions learn over time what is considered spam and what is not, and can be tailored and configured down to the user level."
Daniel Tynan, author of "Privacy Annoyances," and a regular columnist for Sales and Marketing Management magazine, sees both sides of the issue. "It is possible to tune spam filters to get false positives down, but the typical overworked network administrator too often says that 'we are getting so much pornography,'" that the spam filter remains turned on to maximum strength, Tynan says.
So what can a legitimate emailer to do to avoid being caught in the spam trap? Experts offer several suggestions:
If you are sending a message to someone you don't know, consider sending the email as plain text, rather than as HTML, which makes the message look like a Web page. Tynan recommends plain text because spammers often use HTML computer code to hide "beacons." These are small graphics that when a user opens up a spam, sends a type of "message opened" acknowledgement back to the sender.
Don't send attachments if the recipient does not know you. Levine, who is also a board member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, says that because many spammers and virus writers use attachments to spread pornography and malicious computer code, spam filters and anti-virus software sometimes view attachments with suspicion.
In your message subject line, be as specific as possible. This point is especially relevant because spammers have gotten smart enough to write messages with perfectly plausible scenarios, such as "Conference call tomorrow at 10 a.m." "That being the case, don't send a generically titled message, but give as many straightforward details as you can in the subject line," says Levine, who suggests naming specific conference call participants or departments. In other words, instead of typing "Conference call tomorrow at 10 a.m." in your message subject line, Levine suggests trying something such as "Conference call with audit committee tomorrow at 10 a.m." Given the specifics of that subject line, spam filters would recognize the message is not generic, and would probably let it through to the recipient's inbox.
Even if your message is legit, stay away from message subject words that spam filters look for. Although these words vary with each anti-spam software product, a typical list of such terms is available from free anti-spam utility SpamAssassin. A few suspect terms to avoid include: "for only" and "hello," subject lines that start with dollar signs, and words like "free" or "guaranteed" spelled with all capital letters. See the sidebar for a more comprehensive list of these terms.
Obtain permission first. "Email works best when there is full agreement between the sender and receiver," says Gartner analyst Sarner. In some cases, permission would entail contacting the recipient, advising her that you will be sending her an email, and then asking that she adjust her spam filter to ensure that the utility she uses lets your message in. Of course, seeking permission to email a company changes the nature of the email from a cold call to something that is expected. That is fine with Sarner, who views the false positive risks as so acute that sending unexpected email without notifying the recipient first can be a waste of time. Otherwise, "these [unsolicited messages] are going to be reported as spam, blocked and then ignored," says Sarner. "You will want to rise above that noise level, and the best way to do it is to start out with a telephone call or even a face-to-face meeting."
Because the cost-benefit balance between too much spam and that occasional missed potential customer is elusive, the wisest policy is, unfortunately, sometimes a case of the lesser of two evils.
"Fundamentally, it stinks to have to make Draconian tradeoffs, but if you are a business, you have to put up with it," says Levine.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/products-security.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: Barracuda Networks Security RSA Encryption Cisco Decru Neoscale EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant SSL SonicWall Secure Computing Firewall VPN Endpoint
VMware ESX networking: Best Practices - Tips and Tricks - March 11, 2008
Networking with VMware ESX virtual servers has a number of special considerations. This runbook will walk you through physical server-based configuration options, VLAN tagging and MAC addresses and system administrator considerations.
Basic networking for rack and blade servers
VMware ESX Server provides flexibility for optimizing configurations and virtual networking architectures to meet many different requirements. But configuration flexibility can be a double-edged sword because basic network architectures with VMware can become bewildering in the face of so many options. Thus network administrators should become familiar with basic networking options for VMware on blade and rack servers to optimize their ESX networks.
Tower and rackmount servers require a minimum of five network adapters. Because blade servers and chassis have a limited number of uplink ports from the chassis to the distribution/core switches, network administrators should configure trunking of the uplink ports from the chassis switches and implement 802.1q VLAN tagging with a minimum of 1 GB per second for the network.
System administrators can configure ESX to use multiple Ethernet ports. Both an active and standby configurations should be implemented in case of primary port failure. Also, network administrators should team port configurations with multiple load balancing configurations based on the source port IT, a hash of the source MAC address, and IP-based hash of the source and destination.
To watch for network failures, monitor the link state of the adapter, and use beaconing to look upstream within the network. On the same note, ports can be configured to notify switches in the network that a port has been reconfigured, so the ARP tables are updated; this will minimize other errors.
For a more detailed explanation of virtual switches, physical and virtual NICs and MAC addresses, download chapter five of Virtualization with VMware ESX Server, made available to TechTarget readers by Syngress publishing. This chapter, which covers virtual networking, provides enough detail that "both the beginner and possibly the advanced ESX administrator" will find it useful, vs. Virtual Iron vs. Virtual Servers.
Configure and implement VLANs on VMware VI3
Virtual LANs (VLAN) are not new and most network architects and administrators know the ins and outs of configuring them for traditional infrastructures. But configuring VLANs for using VMware VI3 is a different story. Procedures that worked without virtualization, don't work with virtualization. Thus, before seting up VLANs, network administrators need to know a few things:
How many physical NICs are required?
Which VLAN a new virtual server will call home, and
How VLANs work.
When most networking pros talk about building VLANs with VMware VI3, they are usually referring to VLAN trunks. However, there are three other types of VLAN configurations VI3 uses: virtual switch tagging (VST), external switch tagging (EST) and virtual guest tagging (VGT). VLAN tagging allows for connecting a VLAN directly to a guest virtual machine. Administrators should become familiar with what VST, EST and VGT are and how to use them.
Virtual switch tagging, or VST is usually the best option for a guest VM, but it depends on the individual business's needs. With VST, VLAN trunks are used. The physical switch treats the ESX server's switch like a physical switch, tagging traffic appropriately as it passes across the trunk to the server's NICs. The ESX server then uses the tags to direct the traffic to its port.
EST or VGT can be more appropriate options if your organization's servers plug into distribution layer switches, which connect to a core switch. Here, using VST tagging would be impossible. You would need to use EST tagging.
Additionally, if a particular virtual machine needs to be on several VLANs simultaneously, then VGT makes more sense. You'll need guest OS support for VLAN drivers, and this situation is common in UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, such as Solaris, OpenBSD and certain Linux distros.
Network redundancy
Virtualization expert Brian McCarthy of Sencilo Solutions of Tampa Florida discusses why provisioning for networking redundancy for the ESX service console port is important. He suggests having a minimum of two interfaces assigned to the ESX service console port. VirtualCenter 2.5 will warn you if you only have one interface assigned, earlier version of VirtualCenter do not.
The error message, in VirtualCenter2.5, will cause the cluster indicator error symbol to be present indefinitely from the missing interface with ESX 3.01 and 3.02 hosts, and most likely 3.5 hosts as well. This is important because If your virtual servers encounter a new or additional error, you probably wouldn't notice right away. Use a teamed vSwitch for a virtual machine network that does not need redundancy (such as a test network) and reconfigure it on the network and within VirtualCenter to be on the same network as the service console port to resolve this problem.
Disconnected network adapters
If you're making physical-to-virtual migrations with ESX, then it's handy to know that you can configure the virtual server to have its network adapter disconnected at power-on. You'll see be able to see the virtual hardware inventory from the guest operating system, but it will show as if the network was unplugged. With an offline VM, you can configure your IP addressing and DNS information, although you won't be able to test the IP addresses.
This option is useful because in certain cases having a candidate virtual machine on the network and performing its intended tasks too soon can cause a variety of errors, such as duplicate IP addresses, virtual machine applications picking up data simultaneously with another live system, formatting issues from a newer version of the business system feeding results to another system, and so on.
Networking in ESX offers great flexibility, but with flexibility comes room for error. With this tip and the important links scattered throughout you should have a good roadmap on how and why to configure networking for your virtual servers for optimal redundancy, speed, and availability, tailored to your computing environment's specific needs.
We are 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, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP.
Our technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Our 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. With office throughtout Florida including Orlando, St. Petersburg, Miami, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Lake Mary, Lakeland, Gainesville. Call us at (407) 265-6293 or visit us www.sencilo.com
Mimosa Systems Partners With Sencilo Solutions to Deliver Next-Generation Content Archiving to City of Safety Harbor - March 11, 2008
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - (Business Wire) Mimosa Systems, a leader in Live Content Archiving solutions, today announced that it has partnered with Sencilo Solutions, a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions, to deploy the next-generation Mimosa™ NearPoint™ for Microsoft® Exchange Server for the City of Safety Harbor, Fla. The city standardized on NearPoint™ in 2006 to assure the retention, discovery and recovery of its mission critical email environment in a single solution.
Safety Harbor is a small city of almost 18,000 near Tampa. Like many small cities, Safety Harbor has been forced to deal with a big problem — constantly growing email volume — with limited IT resources and budget. To add to the complexity of the problem, the city must comply with the Florida’s Public Records and Sunshine Laws that mandate all municipalities and government agencies retain and provide access to public records including email. That means that even a small city like Safety Harbor must be able to ensure retention and rapid discovery of all its email content. In addition, the city sits in the center of the hurricane zone and the city wanted a solution that would allow them to recover quickly if a natural disaster were to strike.
“Email was increasing at alarming rates and we couldn’t delete old emails because of the requirements of the Sunshine Law,” said James Burke, Information Systems Manager for the City of Safety Harbor. “We were hitting long-term capacity issues and public records requests were taking an inordinate amount of time before we discovered Mimosa. NearPoint has allowed us to address our capacity requirements while streamlining our records retention and public records requests taking a huge burden off of IT resources.”
To address these issues the City of Safety Harbor turned to Sencilio Solutions, a leading Mimosa integration partner to deliver the archiving solution. Sencilo is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. The company’s mission is to provide leading-edge, turnkey solutions for leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses.
“The Mimosa NearPoint archiving solution is a perfect complement to our arsenal of advanced storage and security offerings,” said Brian McCarthy, CEO, Sencilo Solutions. “Local governments are faced with shrinking budgets and the City of Safety Harbor is no exception. Our commitment is to deliver cutting-edge products that deliver rapid value out of the box without having to throw an army of resources and professional services at the problem. Mimosa’s content archiving software was easy to install and we had the entire solution up and running in a single day without impacting end-user productivity.”
Key Mimosa NearPoint features that were particularly important to the City of Safety Harbor include:
- Continuous Capture and Archiving of Exchange Data: including all metadata, emails, folders, deletions, calendars, contacts, notes, tasks to quickly identify relevant content as part of a discovery or disclosure request.
- Automated Exchange Storage Management: Mimosa NearPoint has reduced the city’s storage requirements by moving attachments, based on policies of age and size, to the NearPoint server. The NearPoint Mailbox Extension feature allows Safety Harbor’s IT staff to define policies that stub attachments in Exchange while still giving users seamless access to the email.
- Simple “One-Click” Recovery: Mimosa NearPoint gives the City of Safety Harbor continuous protection of all its Exchange information. NearPoint preserves all Exchange information disk and allows users to restore individual messages themselves via Outlook and allows administrators to restore complete mailboxes and databases with simple “one-click” operations.
“So many municipalities are looking for an easy-to-deploy compliance solution that gives them iron-clad assurance of discovery, information access, retention and business continuity,” said Christophe Culine, senior vice president of sales, Mimosa Systems. “Without a solution like Mimosa, cities can waste valuable resources trying to comply with legislation like the Sunshine Law and Freedom of Information Act. The City of Safety Harbor is proactive in their content management strategy and we are pleased to include them to our growing roster of government customers.”
About Sencilo Solutions
Sencilo Solutions is a Orlando 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, 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.
About Mimosa NearPoint
Mimosa NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server addresses critical customer requirements around email information archiving, eDiscovery, regulatory compliance, business continuity, and storage optimization. Mimosa NearPoint provides legal search workflow, immediate mailbox and message recovery, disaster recovery, email archiving, and self-service search and access in one solution. By leveraging cost-effective storage, NearPoint also optimizes email storage and reduces overall infrastructure costs.
About Mimosa
Mimosa Systems, Inc. delivers next-generation information management solutions for information immediacy, discovery, and continuity. Mimosa NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server is the industry’s most comprehensive information management software solution for Microsoft Exchange, unifying email archiving, recovery, and storage management. With options for eDiscovery and disaster recovery, NearPoint ensures litigation readiness and email continuity while leveraging cost-effective disk technologies to optimize email storage growth.
MTV breach affects 5,000 employees - March 10, 2008
Employees at MTV Networks are watching their credit reports more closely after the company acknowledged that the personal information of 5,000 employees was stolen late last week.
The attack took place via a laptop Internet connection, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Viacom Inc., which owns MTV Networks, did not release further details of the attack.
In an email to employees, Viacom said employee names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth had been stolen. Viacom said in a statement that law enforcement had been contacted and a criminal investigation is ongoing.
Companies are under increased pressure to guard against data security breaches. Security expert Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions of Orlando Florida say "it takes a mixture of strict security policies, end-user education and security technologies to help thwart an attack."
"This is one of those classic problems where people are so confused and when it happens, they get frozen into inaction," said Prat Moghe, founder and chief technology officer of database security vendor, Tizor Systems Inc. Rather than going into areas where they're weak on protection, they end up spending more and more money in areas they're already protecting."
A study by the Elk Rapids, Mich.-based Ponemon Institute found that the total average cost of a data breach grew to $197 per compromised record.
Companies tend to spend money on expanded use of encryption technologies, according to Ponemon. They also invest in new data loss prevention and identity and access management products; and deploy new technology for endpoint security and perimeter control, and event management.
Once the dust settles after a breach, Moghe recommends looking internally at where sensitive data resides on the company systems and how it is accessed. That would help to find the channel of where the data was lost and in plugging those holes, Moghe said.
Companies should also take an inventory to determine the most valuable data and figure out the security protections that are most appropriate to protect the data, said Ted Julian, vice president of marketing at database security vendor, Application Security, Inc. Julian said he's seen many firms discover databases they didn't even know they had, usually as a result of a merger or acquisition. In some cases, the role of IT is decentralized and many business units are free to create databases or implement the latest technologies.
"Yesterday's teenage hackers have figured out that they could make money doing this stuff and that change in motivation has changed the nature of their attacks," said McCarthy. "They're no longer defacing a website to show they can compromise a server, so yesterday's defenses are becoming meaningless."
More than half of corporate endpoints assessed by antimalware vendor Barracuda Networks fail to be secured, said Mike Haro, a senior security consultant at Sophos Inc. In many cases client firewalls have been disabled and antivirus definitions are not up to date, Haro said.
"It's just that enterprises just don't have the right policies in place for managing policy and patch assessment and we see that network access control (NAC) is still not widely deployed," Haro said. "NAC as a solution is still perceived as a complex technology and people are still not exactly sure what issue would be solved with it."
Sencilo Solution has office throughtout Florida including Tampa, St. Petersburg, Miami, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, and Orlando Florida.
Best Practices and FAQs for Backing-Up VMware Servers - March 2, 2008
Yes you’ve made the move towards virtualizing the data center. Whether its for server consolidation, faster provisioning, improved business continuity, or a mix of these goals – you’re in good company. In fact, industry analysts estimate that over 60% of organizations are using server virtualization for some portion of their operations.
But how are you protecting these virtual servers and their data?
Most virtualization packages includes some form of high availability add-on that allows virtual machines (VMs) to move between physical resources. But just like in a physical server environment, HA is only one portion of a data protection strategy. You still need a solution to cost-effectively recover from data loss, corruption, and full site outages – not to mention satisfy regulatory compliance requirements.
To meet these needs without squandering your entire IT budget, you need a backup & recovery solution that uses cost-optimized disk (e.g. a de-duplication product) and tape for archiving and long term disaster recovery. But as you have probably already realized, backup and recovery of virtual servers is different than with physical servers.
Sencilo Solution can help. Working with industry leading backup applications and server virtualization vendors, Sencilo has solutions that easily integrate into your virtual data center and cost-effectively protect your data both on and offsite.
The Challenges of Protecting a Virtual World
At first glance, data protection within a virtual data center can be performed exactly the same as in a physical environment. Backup agents can run in a guest OS and then data can be pushed to a backup server connected to either a tape library or disk-based backup device with de-dupe like Quantum’s DXi. In fact, it is entirely possible that a virtual machine could connect directly to a backup device.
The obvious benefit of this strategy is that it leverages all of your existing processes and expertise. Unfortunately though, it does not account for some of the issues that sharing physical resources can cause. VMware servers share the underlying physical resources of a server. If one VM consumes the bulk of these resources, say for an active backup job, then other VMs become resource starved.
While many virtualization packages offer functionality to migrate VMs between physical resources to handle these issues, it is important to check how that can affect applications and backup jobs. In fact, moving a VM could prevent a backup job from running properly. So, before using any form of migration functionality, its critical to understand how it will impact the ability of data protection operations to run, unlike Data Domain, EMC, Falcon Stor which uses old technology.
In addition to resource allocation and VM location, another key factor to consider is protection of the actual virtualization layer. Some vendors recommend backing up the virtualization layer to make restoration easier in the event of a full disaster recovery. In this case, your data protection strategy will grow and include more jobs (VMs plus virtualization layer).
To recap, the most common data protection challenges in a virtual server world are:
- Resource allocation & preventing VM starvation
- VM locality impact on backup jobs working
- Adding new jobs to protect the virtualization layer
Best Practices for Backup in a VMware Virtual World
As covered in “The Challenges of Protecting a Virtual World” performing backup and recovery on virtual servers is not always completely straight forward. To help customers, Quantum offers the following tips and tactics. For more detailed assistance in how to best protect your virtualized data center, contact a Quantum sales representative today.
Tip 1: Leverage the Virtualization Software Vendor’s Strengths
Companies like VMware often provide utilities to help simplify the process of protecting virtual environments. VMware’s VCB uses snapshot technology to eliminate resource overhead and create images which can then be backed up by another application like BackupExec, Netbackup, Commvault, or TSM. Of course you should always understand the specifics of how these packages work. For instance, VCB requires a shared SAN resource and currently only offers incremental backup functionality for Windows VMs.
The counter is also true. There can be limitations or specific requirements to performing VM data protection. For instance, some virtualization products do not include snapshot functionality. In this instance a VM must be backed up using either standard backup software or by backing up the VM “disks” and the associated configuration files. This method usually requires the virtual machine to be shut down before running the backup. This may even be true when using expensive and complex array-based techniques (e.g. mirror splits). To prevent undesired performance issues or outages during backups, talk with your virtualization vendor.
Tip 2: Determine What is Best for the Application
Backup application vendors have years of experience handling database and email applications that need to be quiesced or tracked carefully to allow for a coherent and consistent backup. For these application types it may be best to continue to use an agent based backup approach – even if other backup and recovery functions are provided by the virtualization software vendor.
Tip 3: Plot Resource Utilization Windows
For those VMs that will use a traditional agent based approach to backups, make sure you understand how much of the physical server’s resources will be consumed by the backup and for how long. With this information you can plot in advance how many VMs should reside on the physical servers or if VM migration strategies and hard resource allocations are necessary.
Tip 4: Understand How Virtual Your Virtual World Really Is
Always make sure you understand how migration of virtual machines will impact backup and recovery processes – whether the backup and recovery is done via a traditional agent based approach or a virtualization vendor specific process like VCB. Also be sure to understand how important it is to backup and restore the virtualization layer itself.
Tip 5: Make Sure Your Strategy Covers Every Server – Virtual and Physical
Most of the popular virtualization software packages available today are aimed at either high end UNIX systems or x86 based operating systems, typically Windows. As a result, many consumers find themselves with a data protection strategy that covers both VMs and physical systems. Work closely with your backup application and hardware providers that have knowledge of how to handle mixed environments like this.
Tip 6: Save Your Dollars, Euros, Yen
One of the key value statements of virtualization software is to reduce costs and optimize resource utilization. The same should be true of your data protection strategy. That’s why de-duplication products like Quantum’s DXi line fit so well into virtual data centers. The DXi offers capacity optimized storage, multiple presentations (NAS, VTL, iSCSI, FC), and encrypted, low-bandwidth replication to serve a variety of onsite and offsite data protection needs.
As data levels grow, tape is still the most cost effective and reliable method of preserving data. Quantum understands this and supplements the DXi line with a wide range of tape devices that support encryption so that you can protect and archive data at extremely low costs while avoiding the issues that have plagued offline storage in recent years.
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
LTO4 Encryption Solutions - DeDupe and Encryption - March 2, 2008
Tampa Florida - Over the past few years, data security breaches have cost companies millions of dollars and inflicted significant damage to the corporate images of these firms. With concerns around data security mounting, businesses of all sizes are beginning to integrate encryption into their backup and archive processes. Sencilo understands that protecting data at rest and in transit are key challenges facing IT professionals today and has integrated data encryption features into its leading disk and tape solutions.
"The cost of a data security breach continues to rise. According to the Ponemon Institute, data security breach incidents now cost companies $197 per compromised record, including lost opportunities and reputation as well as legal, investigative, class action suites, administrative and customer support expenses. Losses associated with customer churn and acquisition account for 65 percent of data security breach costs," says Brian McCarthy CEO and President for Sencilo Solutions of Lake Mary, Florida.
Encryption can dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, the risk of a data security breach. That’s why a growing number of government and industry regulations call for the encryption of sensitive data. Many states require that companies disclose all data security breaches of non-encrypted data to the media and all customers potentially affected. Specific industry associations are also taking action to drive security standards, such as the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard. This standard mandates the encryption of stored data, including data on backup tapes, and noncompliance can result in monetary penalties ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 per month. Finally, a number of bills before Congress would require companies that store specific types of consumer data to establish security safeguards such as encryption. In the past one would need to purchase non-compatable appliances from companies like Neoscale (now closed do to mis-management) or Decru a division of Netapp. These solutions would run up woulds of $500,000 to encrypt tapes.
IT managers are faced with the challenge of integrating encryption into their backup, recovery, and archive processes. This additional business requirement introduces another technical dimension to an already complex set of processes, leaving users with important questions to resolve. Some of the questions the questions that we are often ask are "how will I add encryption without affecting the backup window?" Or Will this change my backup processes and software environment? A few others are how will I manage the encryption process? Can I encrypt data being transported between sites, both via replication and on tapes? Without the right approach and architecture, users will be forced to make painful tradeoffs to achieve data security and may be forced to settle for poor performance, Decru hardware or Symatec Legato backup software dependencies, and complex management.
Sencilo understands the issues and have been providing solutions for the past five years associated with encryption within backup, recovery, and archive. We offer encryption options for both our disk and tape solutions, giving customers the flexibility to choose what fits best with their business requirements. For disk-based backup, One of the most popular is Quantum’s DXi-Series incorporates de-duplication and fully-encrypted replication, allowing customers to securely link sites for enterprise-wide backup and disaster recovery. Unlike the older technology used in Data Domain vs Falcon Stor vs Exagrid, Quantum uses higher proforming technology.
For tape systems, Encryption Key Manager (Q-EKM) is available for Scalar i500 and Scalar i2000 tape libraries in conjunction with LT0-4 drives. Quantum Encryption Key Manager (Q-EKM) is an easy-to-use solution for protecting valuable data at rest across the enterprise. It is easy to set up, integrates seamlessly into existing backup environments, and scales easily to meet changing demands. And with Q-EKM’s “set and forget” design, the administrator doesn’t have to worry about data encryption and key management.
Key Features:
- Provides native LTO-4 drive-based encryption — a cost-effective solution based upon the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) 256-bit encryption recommended by the federal government for classified data.
- Operates out of the data path with no impact on performance or “same system” restore requirements.
- Protects, stores and manages encryption keys supporting multiple libraries in a centralized keystore.
Sencilo Solutions is a recognized leader in the design and deployment of primary and secondary (nearline) 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.
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
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
Data loss prevention starting from the inside out - February 22, 2008
Lake Mary Florida The traditional business-centric view of computer security has focused on the external threat landscape, often overlooking internal vulnerabilities. Subsequently, recent studies from Gartner, Magic Quadrant and Vontu have revealed that a majority of corporate data loss, often termed data leakage, is caused unintentionally by an organization's own actions.
The potential legal liability and brand-reputation damage from corporate data loss has spurred growing demand for data leakage prevention (DLP) technologies. These technologies have largely focused on the need for automated data management. This "inside-out" security paradigm has resulted in corporations striving to achieve rapid data governance via products that emphasize outbound content compliance (OCC) policies, insider threat management, and extrusion prevention systems (EPS).
However, before considering a comprehensive enterprise data management product or platform, information security departments must understand their organizations' business workflow and how it relates to the protection of existing IT assets. This process should include investigating and targeting key aspects of the network infrastructure that may be a source of data loss. Here are some important issues to consider when identifying potential areas of data leakage:
"As the complexity of an IT infrastructure increases, so does the difficulty of knowing where all the data resides, how it's accessed and by whom", say Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions in Tampa Florida.
As the roles of data managers and storage managers blur, assigning the responsibility for creating a data ranking system becomes harder to define this is were turning to a Security Expert and Trusted advisor really is money well spent, says McCarthy.
The business must strive to assess the criticality of corporate. Once content discovery of all data is completed, a classification scheme must be implemented to categorize data sensitivity. .
Those with access to the data are the ones usually responsible for its loss. Identify users with overly permissive access controls, including senior managers, who often request high privilege levels without possessing the proper training in data security.
While inbound email is analyzed to protect against internet threats, outbound email is often overlooked as a major source of data loss. The accidental loss of confidential and proprietary information from insider email is one of the largest areas of data loss. The risks associated from activities such as personal web based account use and inappropriate message auto forwarding, can have serious legal, financial and regulatory consequences. .
- Unauthorized use of Internet protocols and services -- such as IM, peer-to-peer file sharing, blogging, social networking sites and unauthorized uploading (FTP) of data to Web sites -- is a major contributor to data security incidents and should be controlled via a detailed policy.
- The use of contractors and outside consultants usually requires the creation of new user credentials. However, knowledge and accountability of these user accounts is essential, as they are often lost.
- Removable storage media, such as flash drives, optical media, external hard drives and personal media devices, create a portable medium for the loss of data.
- Mobile computing platforms (i.e. laptops, PDAs) allow data to be physically removed from the corporate environment where all monitoring and control is lost and where encryption is important.
Strategic planning for prevention
Enterprise storage has evolved far beyond direct-attached storage (DAS), basic networked file shares and simple database storage. Today's company's like Sencilo Solutions will architect storage area networks (SANs) using iSCSI and Fibre Channel, tiered and hierarchical storage models like Compellent Technologies, virtual storage systems like Overland Storage, high-end storage arrays from HDS and clustered storage. Due to the wide variety of hardware and software and their numerous configurations, the remediation strategies for data leakage are ultimately company specific.
Nevertheless, the commonality of all DLP planning should involve consideration of the following:
- Implementing basic company-wide standards and procedures for all employee data usage and information ownership;
- Assessing and ranking corporate data based on the business risks associated with its loss or exposure;
- Ensuring detection and classification software uses effective identification algorithms with lexical examination of data content;
- Performing frequent inventory reviews of business critical data, ensuring proper safeguards are in place and making sure security protocols are up to date;
- Using an effective data security model that simplifies role based access control (RBAC) and granular control of individual users;
- Enforcing employee training of corporate email acceptable use policies. Consider messaging protection platforms for automated corporate compliance and policy management of outbound email;
- Ensuring that employees are aware of computer usage monitoring as a deterrent to attempts at policy circumvention;
- Administering frequent reviews of user-privilege levels to assess and confirm that the appropriate settings are configured for each user;
- Embedding access controls directly into sensitive data through use of digital rights management (DRM) technologies like Q1 Labs or Barracuda Networks;
- Maintaining data security when dealing with business partners through the use of federated identity management; and
- Generating routine audit and data-flow assessment reports to monitor data leakage threats using QRadar and track data locations with respect to time and user request.
Data loss prevention has become a relevant compliance issue and is critical in protecting confidential company data and preserving customer data privacy. Data growth rates today are such that it is a challenge to efficiently manage new and existing data. Corporate security policies that address data proliferation issues must also sustain data availability, business productivity, operational continuity and data restoration. Most importantly, to avoid end-user misperception that your DLP strategy is set of IT laws, thorough communication and education is essential in facilitating acceptance of the organization's DLP program as an important parallel business strategy.
Sencilo offers a comprehensive suite of Security products and services that help you assess, design, and execute your network and applications in the most secure and cost-effective way. From security audits and virtual private networks to enterprise firewall implementations.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/security-threat-management.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
Compellent adds disk stroking and app tuning to ILM SAN - February 22, 2008
Compellent Technologies upgraded its StorageCenter SAN system with a faster controller as well as enhancements to its block-level storage automation software.
New block-level features include Fast Track, which automates the placement of blocks on the tracks of each individual disk drive according to frequency of access. This is similar to the way StorageCenter already automatically moves blocks between different classes of drives for tiered storage. Like Florida based Pillar Data Systems Inc.'s disk short-stroking feature, Fast Track places more frequently accessed blocks on the outer tracks of individual disk drives and less-accessed blocks on the inner part of the disk.
StorageCenter SAN users can preselect classes of service for applications, but the SAN handles placement of blocks on the disk tracks in the background, according to Compellent vice president of marketing Bruce Kornfeld. The processing of blocks for the Fast Track and Storage Progression tiered storage features runs once a day, at a time set by the user.
Compellent claims that Fast Track will improve disk utilization in existing StorageCenter SANs by 30%, citing lab tests. One Compellent customer said he's been able to defer disk purchases with the feature in limited deployment and anticipates being able to avoid more costs during an upcoming move to a new data center.
"We've been able to recover some costs by moving things to SATA [disks] because we don't need as many disks dedicated to I/O," said Ping Ooi, assistant vice president of technology for Tampa-based investment management firm Ares Management. The company is moving to a new data center this spring, and Ooi said he expects to be able to save $50,000 to $80,000 on the cost of disk drives by using thin provisioning and the disk-stroking feature to consolidate data. On the downside, Ooi said he's still waiting for Compellent to add support for SAS drives.
Other updates to StorageCenter include Free Space Recovery, which defragments free space in thin-provisioned storage pools, and Thin Import, which is designed to avoid copying empty volumes from legacy disk arrays onto the Jacksonville based Compellent system.
Another new feature, called Application Optimizer, gives customers the option of three different page-file sizes to match the I/O profile of different applications. High I/O applications can use a 512 KB page file size, while large files, such as streaming video, can use 4 MB page files. The system default remains 2 MB. This feature is comparable to a recently announced update to Pillar's Axiom arrays, called Application-Aware Storage.
Compellent has also added a new hardware module with faster controllers that will be backward-compatible with its existing Series 10 and Series 20 array building blocks. The new Series 30 box adds dual-core processors at 3 GHz, a PCI-Express architecture and 3.5 GB of cache, up from 2.25 GB in the Series 20.
"There isn't any one feature in this release that's earth-shattering by itself," said Arun Taneja of the Taneja Group Gartner Magic Quadrant. "As a combination, I think it shows fantastic progression for [Compellent]. They've added intelligence to the storage system that in the past hasn't been there or has come from a software layer above the array."
Compellent still working toward profitability
Compellent, which went public last October, reported revenue for the fourth quarter of 2007 of $16.9 million, an increase of 124% from $7.5 million a year ago and up 26% from the third quarter. Net losses in the quarter narrowed from $2.0 million to $1.8 million. For the year, revenue increased 119% to $51.2 million from $23.3 million in 2006.
The company is still looking for its first profitable quarter, which CEO Phil Soran predicted on last week's earnings call will come in the second half of 2008 Orlando.
"Compellent isn't quite at the point I thought they'd be at by now," Taneja said. "But there's a certain level of inertia in the ILM storage market, and they're growing as fast as their feet on the street can go."
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
