Data Protection
Unitrends enhances data protection appliances - February 17, 2008
Watchout Symantec Backup Exec and Netbackup Unitrends has announced a new version of its Data Protection and Rapid Recovery ( bare metal) platform and a high-capacity model of its Multi-Drive Archive System. The integrated data protection and vaulting appliances now offer support for more than 30 operating systems, VMware virtual servers, and 30TB of removable disk capacity for SMB and SMEs.
Data Protection and Rapid Recovery 3.1 includes integrated support for VMware's ESX 3.X Server Backup and VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) and improved Windows integration, providing support for virtualization environments as well as Microsoft SQL MSDE and Exchange 2007.
Unitrends has beefed up its archiving platform in several different areas, according to Maria Ellison, senior vice president of product services management. Upgrades include expanded application support and support for virtual environments via API integration with VMware Consolidated Backup. However, she says, the "game changer" for Unitrends is its new central management console.
"We had an adequate Linux user interface in the past, but it was not centralized. Everything had to be managed separately," says Ellison. "We benchmarked our new interface for ease of use against the big boys, including Symantec Backup Exec, Microsoft Data Protection Manager, Commvault and Windows Home Server, and we believe we are on parity with those products."
The integrated Centralized Management Console provides the ability to manage multiple Unitrends Data Protection Units (DPUs) and Data Protection Vaults (DPVs) from a single console using a new user interface with recovery and configuration tools and SQL status reporting.
Software enhancements to the DPV appliances include a performance boost designed to reduce vaulting windows and improve bandwidth utilization by enabling block-level data to be transmitted more quickly from Unitrends' DPUs to its DPVs.
On the hardware side, Unitrends has given its Multi-Drive Archive System a shot in the arm when it comes to scalability. The system—which includes 4TB of raw capacity—now allows customers to use removable disk technology for archiving data in the range of 10TB to 30TB of uncompressed data, depending upon the specific compression ratios of the data.
The higher-capacity Multi-Drive Archive is also supported by the new Data Protection and Rapid Recovery 3.1 platform and includes up to four drives per archive and a RAID-0 configuration, and can be installed as a 1U box connected to a DPU.
All new DPUs are shipping with the version 3.1 software at a starting price of just under $5,000. Existing customers with current support/maintenance contracts are eligible for a free software upgrade to version 3.1.
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
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
White House e-discovery squeeze puts e-mail backup in focus - February 15, 2008
Experts say many organizations lack urgency to archive e-mail, handle discovery requests
As the White House contends with a federal judge's order to prepare a discovery plan amid a legal skirmish about missing e-mail, Brian McCarthy Storage veteran and President of Sencilo Solution headquartered in Orlando Florida says "businesses should move to improve backup and e-mail archiving policies to avoid similar legal problems".
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly this week issued an order enabling the Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics watchdog group to perform limited questioning of White House officials. The group last May had filed suit against the White House Office of Administration seeking access to White House e-mail under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
The nonprofit group had been seeking White House e-mail documents related to various controversial issues, including the release of the identity of a former CIA operative, the reasons for launching the war in Iraq and actions by the U.S. Department of Justice. The White House has contended that the e-mail requested by the group has been lost.
Kollar-Kotelly ordered the discovery to determine whether the Office of Administration is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The office contends it is not subject to FOI requests.
The watchdog group and the White House were ordered by the judge to submit a discovery plan to the court by Feb. 21.
Brian McCarthy said "many businesses operate under the false assumption that e-mail is not a business record". He said "that most business and IT managers fall short of creating adequate e-mail archiving and policy-based data-retention processes".
"A lot of people are not implementing e-mail archiving [processes]; they're saving e-mail, but not in a cohesive or consistent way," said McCarthy. "Companies can say 'Yes, we need to archive,' but [the process] must be policy-driven and taken out of users' hands."
McCarthy said the White House's legal problems over its inability to recover e-mail from its own servers and backup systems may jolt end users into realizing the legal consequences of subpar retention policies.
"This should wake people up to what could happen if you don't save e-mail appropriately. It's a good shot across the bow and a very good lesson for senior managers," he added.
McCarthy said organizations should outline each business unit's retention responsibilities by defining what type of data is considered business information and how long it should be stored.
Lauren White, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Inc. in Milford, Mass., said many organizations lack the ability to optimize backups and make important data easy to access. She said the White House e-mail flap should show IT managers that mismanaged backup processes can choke an organization's data-retention efforts.
Everyone is afraid to throw anything away. All that [stored data] on the production system isn't pruned. It's all just continually backed up," said White. "[Paranoia] is a characteristic of a lot of companies out there, and they're not repeatedly optimizing their backups."
In addition to e-mail archiving, White said businesses can streamline their backup systems by "skimming" unchanged information from data sets being saved, instituting policies for incremental rather than full backups, and incorporating de-duplication and decompression into backup practices, from vendor like Quantum, Hitachi or Exagrid.
"I think in a lot of organizations backup has not been considered a [forward-thinking] strategy. As unsexy as it is, we need to make sure we're doing it right and we have the right level of resources applied to it," McCarthy.
About Sencilo Solutions
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. Call us at (407) 265-6293 or visit us on the web at www.sencilo.com
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
Hitachi (HDS) ships VTL bundles with Diligent deduplication - February 12, 2008
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is tweaking its virtual tape library (VTL) platform with three bundled configurations of servers, disk arrays and ProtecTier data deduplication software from Diligent Technologies Inc.
When HDS began shipping VTLs through an OEM deal with Diligent in 2006, customers had to choose an HDS array for storage and spec out processing power. HDS offered services to help customers with the design but now has identified common configurations to sell in bundles through channel partners, like Sencilo Solutions of Orlando Florida. The packages are meant to simplify deployment at medium-sized businesses, but analysts say the HDS platform needs to be more than just a VTL to find a real foothold in that market.
The HDS bundles are the Virtual Tape Library Appliance Model 500M, 1000L and 1000E. The 500M is based on the HDS AMS 500 storage array with up to 16 drives and 8 TB to 20 TB capacity, a dual dual-core processor server and the midmarket version of Diligent's ProtecTier software. Models 1000L and 1000E are based on the AMS 1000 disk array and quad dual-core servers. The 1000L supports 15 TB to 30 TB and up to 256 disks. The 1000E also supports up to 256 disks but can store 30 TB to 50 TB.
HDS claims 200 MBps throughput performance on the 500M, 300 MBps on the 1000L and 400 MBps on the 1000E. The performance numbers are based on the observations of channel partners working in customer environments, according to Victor Nemechek, HDS product marketing manager for VTL, although he could not be more specific as to how the numbers were calculated.
Other storage vendors have recently started shipping what had been software-only data deduplication products with pretuned hardware to boost performance or ease setup for users. EMC Corp. did that with Avamar's data deduplication backup software when it announced the Avamar Data Store in September, and FalconStor Software Inc. in January coupled its Single Instance Repository (SIR) dedupe with a new clustered hardware architecture in the fifth generation of its VTL software. "End-user customers have told us in primary research that they want something preconfigured," said Laura DuBois, an IDC analyst. "It's too hard to architect and optimize hardware while putting in new software as well, something FalconStor has yet to figure-out" say Gartner, Inc.'s Magic Quadrant.
However, analysts warn that appliances could run into scalability problems. Nemechek said HDS has yet to determine how to upgrade users from one model to another. "It would be nice to have some modeling tools so channel partners could work with customers on the right size appliance," said Dave Russell, a Gartner analyst. "The last thing you want to do is have a partner accidentally undersize a configuration," Russell said. If users outgrow an appliance now, they usually add another one, and Russell said he hopes to see Diligent eventually add clustering support so customers can pool multiple devices. Sencilo Solutions President and Storage Veteran Brian McCarthy states "HDS has assisted us more then once with sizing tools and guidance, besides Data Domain has to send a Storage Engineer on-site to size a backup project, something most resellers are not big fans". Asked why McCarthy is not a big fan of having Data Domain assist them, he stated that "Data Domain has under cut him in two deals and taken deals direct, even after they were registered by Sencilo."
As HDS and Diligent try to expand into the midmarket, they may face another issue: Data Domain Inc. has already established a strong presence there with customers and with partners. Unlike Diligent, Data Domain offers a NAS interface as an option. "Newer backup products are beginning to evolve to address some of the reasons for the VTL interface, and everyone's in the dedupe game," according to DuBois. "The more interesting question is what the long-term strategy is for data protection and secondary storage." As for Data Domain standing between HDS and a sucessful product offering, "let's just say, Data Domain will be road kill along the way," says McCarthy of Sencilo.
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
A Guide to Practical PCI Compliance - February 9, 2008
With all the doom and gloom about how difficult and costly PCI is supposed to be, the reality is that PCI compliance is attainable and sustainable, if you follow these tips.
Myriad merchants find themselves at the end of the PCI compliance barrel and are spending significant amounts of time, money and effort in achieving PCI compliance. Advice from companies that have been there can help smooth your path.
Organizational Maturity
"One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is jumping into their PCI remediation effort without first understanding their company's gaps. It's crucial to realize that every organization has a different maturity level when it comes to technology and compliance. Without first knowing what level you are at, taking a "one size fits all" approach to fixing PCI will spell disaster", states Brian McCarthy the President of Sencilo Solution a Orlando Florida based Security firm with offices in Tampa and Jacksonville.
"A pre-compliance assessment is imperative and enables you to understand what your PCI compliance effort will entail. The output is a document identifying gaps between your current state and what the PCI DSS (Data Security Standard) requirements necessitate", cites McCarthy.
Some of the items covered in our pre-compliance assessment will include:
- Review of IT infrastructure; PCI-relevant application architecture, policies, procedures and processes; overall network design
- Gap analysis
- Network vulnerability scanning
- Risk analysis
- Mapping business flows to technology flows
Sencilo provides assistance in determining your current state by providing a PCI Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). The SAQ is divided into six sections focusing on a specific area of security. After completing the SAQ, we will have a good idea of which controls and tools are in are in place.
- Cross-Organizational Interaction
- PCI requires the whole organization to play nicely together; too many organizations have different IT groups that have developed their own fiefdoms and act in semi-autonomous states. PCI doesn't support such an approach—it requires different groups to collaborate whether they like it or not.
- Success with PCI is dependant on how the numerous groups work together and maintain reasonable expectations.
- How well this is executed has a direct impact on compliance. The best way to ensure understanding is to set effective ground rules at the beginning of the compliance effort.
Vendor Remediation Support
"One of the biggest mistakes organizations made is using older software and hardware that isn't PCI-compliant. Similar to preparing for Y2K, getting vendors to ensure their products comply with PCI can be a significant issue. How much of an issue depends on your importance to the vendor and the importance of PCI to the vendor, says McCarthy. "We offer a full suite of PCI-compliant products and services, from companies like Barracuda Networks, Symantec and Q1 Labs.
For more information please call us at (407) 265-6293 or visit us at www.sencilo.com
enVision Data Loss Prevention Encryption and Key Management RSA Barracuda Q1
Barracuda Networks Launches First Enterprise-Class Web Application Controller for SMB Market - February 9, 2008
Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG Offers Robust Web site Application Protection at an Affordable Price
Campbell, Calif., Feb. 7, 2008 – Barracuda Networks, Inc., the worldwide leader in email and Web security appliances, today launched the Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG, the first and only enterprise-class Web Application Controller available for small and medium businesses. Ideal for SMBs on a tight IT budget, this is the first appliance to fully secure Web applications and ensure compliance with regulations, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for $10,000.
“We are essentially bringing plug-and-play PCI compliance to the mass market,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks. “Until now, most businesses in the SMB space were facing very expensive and time-consuming audits of their Web infrastructures in order to achieve PCI compliance. Further, these audits would be required every time the organization makes a change to their Web applications, so it is very possible that such costs could very quickly overwhelm a business.
“With the Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG small and medium businesses will no longer have to worry about the recurring costs of application source code audits and instead they can achieve PCI DSS compliance without breaking the budget,” added Pao.
As the June 30, 2008 deadline mandating e-commerce businesses of all sizes be compliant with requirement 6.6 of PCI DSS quickly approaches, many SMB organizations have been left with no choice but to prepare for very expensive and very detailed custom application code reviews. The Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG now provides these organizations with a cost-effective and powerful solution that will protect and maintain their Web infrastructure as well as satisfy PCI DSS requirements.
Comprehensive Web site Protection
The Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG brings the same award-winning protection from Web site threats, such as unauthorized access, data theft, denial of service or defacement, offered in the full Barracuda Web Application Controller line. The Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG secures against all common Web application threats including SQL injections, cross-site scripting attacks, session tampering and buffer overflows. Operating as a full proxy the Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG inspects both request and response traffic, providing the capabilities to not only block inbound attacks, but also to shield SMB business Web sites from hackers and to filter outbound traffic, preventing sensitive data leakage, such as Social Security and credit card numbers. In addition the Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG integrates traffic management capabilities including caching, compression and load balancing, enabling Web application security as well as an increase in performance and availability of the applications. Incorporating these features into the Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG eliminates the need for multiple devices on the network, which ultimately brings down the user’s total cost of ownership.
The Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG is the first model to be added to the Barracuda Web Application Controller product line since Barracuda Networks completed the acquisition of NetContinuum, the leading provider of Web Application Firewalls, in September 2007.
“One of our goals in acquiring NetContinuum was to deliver industry-leading capabilities to a set of customers who had previously been unable to deploy Web site security solutions,” said Pao. “With the launch of the new Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG we are combining Web application security, traffic management and SSL acceleration into an easy to use and affordable solution for protecting Web sites of all sizes.”
Pricing and Availability
The Barracuda Application Gateway NC 500 AG is currently available and priced at $10,000. International pricing varies by region. For more information, visit http://www.sencilo.com/security-web-application-controllers.php
About Barracuda Web Application Controllers
Barracuda Web Application Controllers, including both the Barracuda Web Application Firewall and Barracuda Application Gateway, protect Web sites from attackers leveraging protocol or application vulnerabilities to instigate unauthorized access, data theft, denial of service or defacement. Designed to deliver comprehensive Web security, Barracuda Web Application Controllers act as a proxy for Web traffic to insulate Web servers from direct access by hackers, enforces data security standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and secures Web sites against the top 10 major Web vulnerabilities compiled by Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). Available in two models, the Barracuda Web Application Firewall provides Web applications and Web services with complete protection against malicious attacks. The Barracuda Application Gateway, also available in three models, enhances the powerful Barracuda Web Application Firewall to integrate traffic management capabilities for increased performance and availability.
About Barracuda Networks Inc.
Barracuda Networks Inc. is the worldwide leader in email and Web security appliances. Barracuda Networks also provides world-class IM protection, application server load balancing and message archiving appliances. More than 50,000 companies, including Coca-Cola, FedEx, Harvard University, IBM, L'Oreal, NASA and Europcar, are protecting their networks with Barracuda Networks’ solutions. Barracuda Networks' success is due to its ability to deliver easy to use, comprehensive solutions that solve the most serious issues facing customer networks without unnecessary add-ons, maintenance, lengthy installations or per user license fees. Barracuda Networks is privately held with its headquarters in Campbell, Calif. Barracuda Networks has offices in eight international locations and distributors in more than 80 countries worldwide.
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
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.
Uncomplexifing data dedupe - February 6, 2008
Source de-duplication is set to be "more disruptive" than previous technologies
Data de-duplication technology has emerged as a key technology in the effort to reduce the amount of data backed up on a daily basis, which in many enterprises is growing at more than 100% every year.
For example, Jame Thomson, IT manager at Tampa-based medical firm, was able to use data de-duplication technology to reduce the amount of data streamed from more than a dozen remote offices and thereby cut his backup window from 11 hours to 50 minutes. Thomas says his compression ratio for his backups run as high as 55:1, using technologies provided by Sencilo Soutions.
Vendors have taken different approaches to the technology resulting in multiple distinct products that users should become familiar with in order to choose the flavor that best suits their environments.
Data de-duplication uses commonality factoring to reduce the amount of data either at the backup server or at the target storage device. As a result of enormous compression ratios achieved by data de-dup technology, SATA disk are becoming more attractive as a viable, online alternative to traditional tape-based backup. For example, people working at remote and branch offices need instant access to all the data and applications available at their company's headquarters. So IT shops typically set up remote mini data centers, with application servers, block and file data storage, backup tape and report printers, sacrificing administrative control. By utilizing data de-dupe technology, backups can be performed over the WAN using spare nighttime bandwidth, eliminating the need for tape at remote sites.
Brian McCarthy, President and Industry Storage Veteran for Sencilo Solutions says de-duplication technology mainly resides in the backup space, complementing traditional tape libraries with the purpose of lowering costs and reducing data.
The main benefit to de-dup technology is that you're not seeing your virtual tape library fill up, and you're "not seeing your backup targets fill up as fast as it normally would," McCarthy says. Watch for Gartner, Inc.'s Magic Quadrant to show up with several of the leader including Quantum, Overland Storage, EMC, and NetApp.
De-dupe can be done at the target of a backup stream (the storage array or tape drive) or at the source of the data being backed up (the application server). Traditionally, de-dupe products had been used as a target for backup data, but McCarthy says there is "a growing emphasis de-duping back on the server."
Target de-dupe products are generally used as part of a final repository for backup data. Most backup software today supports tape volumes, files or raw disk as targets. Target de-dupe products mimic a tape library and support virtual tape libraries (VTL), or they can act as a network-attached storage file server supporting network file system (NFS) or Common Internet File System files. Target de-dupe technology can also work on raw disk supporting Internet SCSI or Fibre Channel logical unit numbers (LUN). Prominent target based de-dupe products are sold by Data Domain Inc., Diligent Technologies Corp., ExaGrid Systems Inc., Overland Storage., Quantum Corp., and Sepaton Inc.
Today, de-duping data at the target is the leading method, but de-duping data at the source where the data is coming from is even more disruptive, and the benefits are far greater, McCarthy says. But having a integrator who specializes in this type of technology is most important to your success. Sencilo has deployed some 2+ peta-bytes of de-dup based VTLs.
Source de-dupe products replace backup software used in a client/server configuration, where remote clients de-dupe data being backed up and only transmit unique data to the central server. This reduces bandwidth requirements considerably, according to McCarthy. Some prominent source-based de-dupe products include Asigra Inc.'s Televaulting for Enterprises, EMC Corp.'s Avamar, Network Appliance Inc.'s SnapVault, and Symantic Corp.'s NetBackup Pure Disk.
In band or out of band
Another characteristic used to discriminate target de-dupe products is when data de-duplication processing occurs. Data de-duplication takes time to compute and find commonality in the data being backed up. To minimize the effect on backup performance, some vendors de-dupe data in the background. These de-dupe products buffer the backup stream to disk and then after the fact reduce its size via de-duplication. ExaGrid, FalconStor and Quantum provide target de-dupe products that do background data de-duplication. This type of technology will shortly replace first generation products from suppliers like Data Domain, who plays mostly in the small non-critical shops. Earlier products can handle the backup stream and de-dupe in band, in real time. Target vendors that de-dupe in band include Data Domain and Overland Storage. All source vendors de-dupe in band as well. Paradoxically, the in-band vendors are not able to sustain full backup stream performance, and therefore less desirable for anything larger then a few tera-bytes, and found more in the SMB space.
The unit of de-dupe granularity, called chunk size, further differentiates de-dupe products. Only NetApp touts a fixed chunk size equal to data block size, according to McCarthy. Most de-dupe products claim variable chunk size from the file level down to sub-block level. By using variable chunk size for data inserted into a file, you need only show the changed data as being different, and the rest of the file would be the same. Even more impressively, most de-dupe products can not only reduce data from generations of the same file but also eliminate data copies across files.
Yet another de-dupe difference is file-type sensitivity. Some target products open the backup stream to determine data type and invoke file-type-specific policies to provide better de-duplication. Sepaton claims to have the most file-specific policies. Other target vendors claim that their products perform file-specific de-dupe to a lesser extent, including Data Domain, Diligent and Quantum, which all claim they are completely agnostic regarding backup streaming, they may claim it but not all of them are telling the truth. So check with a partner with experience that has installed and supports them.
The numbers for de-dupe compression rates range anywhere from 3:1 to 500:1. De-dupe products can sustain these high compression rates because backups generate duplicate data every time a full backup is run. Moreover, beneath the file level, most data is not unique even though a file is modified. But, some data does not de-dupe well, including audio, photo, movie and other media files that simply don't have excess white space or duplicate data.
Bob Sanders manages 12 De-Dup boxes throughout the U.S that Sencilo sold them last year. They are being used as VTL targets for Symantec NetBackup. The boxes have a capacity of .5TB to 18TB. But, each of Sanders VTL boxes backs up the equivilant of 600TB to 1,500TB of data.
The arrays have been in production for more than nine months. Each office does a local backup to its on-site de-dup boxes. That data is replicated off-site to headquarters in Orlando and then again replicated to the law firm's secondary site. Before the Sencilo solution, Sanders says his company had DLT-3 tape changers and LTO-2 tape. Backups at some offices used to take more than 14 hours, but now with new de-dup VTLs, the backups are under 45 minutes. Sanders backs up one site with 163 TB of data onto 4.6TB of Data Domain for a compression ratio of 34.6:1. Smaller sites have experienced a compression ratio as high as 55:1.
"The hardware was comparable to buying all-new tape hardware, but the speed and the ability to not have to manage the tape is what really got us … the replication is an added bonus," Sanders says.
Grahame McKenzie, manager of IT at Crawford Adjusters Canada Inc. in Hamilton, Ontario, had performed local backups at each of the company's 80 remote sites. He now manages 80 remote and 20 local Asigra clients backing up to a single 2TB Asigra TeleVault. They mirror the central TeleVault to an off-site hardened data center and copy their monthly full backups off onto tape moving these off-site to another location.
McKenzie says that before, "we weren't even doing it [backups] on the smaller XP share points -- there was no backup. It just wasn't economical; if it was an NT server, it would [be] backed up to tape." This process was time-consuming and not subject to easy validation. He says that "with Asigra, backups all take place, and they all come here, … and I get a report on everything the next day." McKenzie says that in some cases, it was difficult to quantify a return on his investment because no backups were being performed, but he did say "we don't invest in tape on our new branch servers, and we have one tape library here."
McCarthy says data de-duplication allows users to retire most of their tape infrastructure at remote and local sites. In some environments, it may not be possible to eliminate all tape processing, but it can be reduced considerably. At essentially the purchase price of replacing tape, you can get all the benefits of tape with the convenience of disk -- mainly quicker, less error-prone and less operator-intensive backups and restores.
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. Call us today at (407) 265-6293 or visit us at www.sencilo.com
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
