RAID
Best Practices for Microsoft Hyper-V and Storage Provisioning - November 9, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Xiotech Corporation announced plans today, at Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2008, to support Linux and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments within its award-winning ICON Manager user interface, expanding the integrated and automated storage provisioning and management it already provides. Through the end of SNW Fall, Xiotech representatives are available to discuss these and the company's other storage management tools at booth #306.
Currently, storage provisioning and management are typically "siloed" in that IT managers must use multiple management consoles to configure storage – first on the storage array, and then on the physical and virtual servers. Each step adds time and the risk of human error. ICON Manager's integrated and automated storage management enables users to provision and manage storage from a single console and gain a global view of storage throughout their IT environments.
ICON Manager, which currently provides these advanced capabilities for Windows and VMware environments, now adds support for Linux in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will support Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V by early 2009. ICON Manager also supports simplified storage provisioning and management for other operating systems, including UNIX, Mac OS and Novell NetWare.
"Our customers have saved significant money, time and stress by simplifying how they monitor, provision and manage their storage through ICON Manager," said Sencilo Solutions CEO Brian McCarthy. "Storage management is more application-driven than storage-driven, and the human error found in complex management procedures is essentially eliminated, because of the automation and control ICON Manager delivers. With support for additional operating systems, our users will now be able to realize even more functionality and savings across their entire IT ecosystems."
ICON Manager is designed for users of Xiotech's Emprise™ 7000 and Magnitude 3D® 4000 and Magnitude 3D 3000 storage systems. Based on the Web Services open architecture and utilizing Microsoft Management Console plug-ins, ICON Manager provides an unprecedented level of integration, automating storage management processes across the array and server environments. Wizards guide users through common tasks, speeding administration, reducing the possibility for errors and empowering users to realize the full value of their investment. Additionally, ICON Manager provides a global view of storage across the array, physical server and virtual machine layers, which helps avoid the inefficiencies of dark storage, where allocated but unused storage is difficult to locate and identify.
"It is good to see Xiotech extending its existing capabilities with ICON Manager into more environments," said Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Peters. "With increasing system complexity as the norm in most data centers – especially as virtualized server environments grow – the capability that Xiotech offers for overall centralized storage monitoring and management is a boon. It's not just centralized and functional, but – at least as important – it's also easy to learn, navigate and use."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://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.
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
Tier Zero Storage - Solid-state Disk technology now topping 1M IOPS - November 1, 2008
Lake Mary, Florida -- Texas Memory Systems this week unveiled its largest solid-state drive (SSD) storage system -- the RamSan-5000, a stack of 10 RamSan-500 units that can be managed centrally and the vendor claims can deliver an aggregate 1 million IOPS.
The performance figure is based on the 100,000 random read IOPS benchmark TMS claims for the RamSan-500. The RamSan-5000 stacks 10 of the devices into a 40U appliance. Each individual RamSan-500 remains a separate logical unit, but all can be managed through the same software GUI. TMS said the system uses 3,000W of power.
This management GUI provides monitoring and reporting on the system, as well as the ability to initially carve out LUNs within each device (each RamSan-500 must present at least one LUN). Then OS-based volume managers would connect those LUNs to hosts.
TMS said it has installed the system in one customer data center, though the customer has not been named or its particular application for the system identified. The customer uses the system for "a database application with high-speed ingest and a lot of people querying and accessing the system simultaneously," which is "usually the case" among SSD users, said TMS marketing director Woody Hutsell.
The RamSan-5000 costs $1.5 million, but users in performance-oriented environments will find the system cost-competitive with buying large numbers of disks to achieve high IOPS, Hutsell said. One example he cited was of a recent SPC-1 result submitted by IBM for SAN Volume Controller (SVC) 4.3, which claimed approximately 275,000 IOPS on a total of 61 TB of capacity for a price tag of $3.2 million.
"It all depends on how much capacity you need," said Brian McCarthy, CEO and President for Sencilo Solutions and leading supplier of network storage. "If you're buying 1,000 drives just for IOPS, SSDs really can be more cost-competitive [with Tier 1 arrays]."
Complicating looming SSD deployments are the Tier 1 storage array vendors who are placing SSDs behind their controllers. This allows the storage array software to position only high-priority data on the SSDs while migrating lower-priority data off SSDs to traditional hard disk drives.
With the RamSan-500, McCarthy said most rely on host-based tools, such as replication or mirroring, to provision and protect the system. However, some with SAN-based disaster recovery infrastructures have also duplicated writes to the RAM-SAN and their traditional disk array, "which is cheaper than mirroring the RamSan."
"Management software is important for SSDS to gain traction in a broader sense. I think ultimately that's the direction a lot of SSD vendors are going," McCarthy added.
TSM is adding a new management feature called Turbo, which allows LUNs to be "locked" in battery-backed DRAM cache to boost performance of write-intensive data sets or frequently accessed metadata, such as database redo logs. The DRAM cache has redundant battery backup to protect it against a power loss and will also flush data automatically to flash disks with RAID 3 parity protection. The RamSan-5000 can accommodate between 160 GB and 640 GB of DRAM.
While this product will mainly appeal to the niche high-performance computing market for now, Storage Switzerland analyst George Crump says it's a good demonstration of the kinds of capabilities that could become mainstream in the next few years. "If you'd told me several years ago that I'd ever need hundreds of gigabytes of storage in my home, I would've thought you were nuts," he pointed out. "Today's niche could be tomorrow's general purpose application -- this system paves the way to get there."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://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.
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
Nexsan going Public? Not a chance - May 6, 2008
Storage hardware and software vendor Nexsan Corp. is trying to raise $80.5 million in an initial public offering (IPO) after suffering through a decade of unprofitability.
"We have not been profitable in any fiscal period since we were formed," Nexsan stated in papers filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Nexsan was founded in 1999 and has recorded $21.9 million in net losses since July 2004.
Nexsan's decision to go public is surprising because the current market climate is "inhospitable," The 451 Group analysts Henry Baltazar and Brenon Daly wrote in a report issued May 1, a week after the IPO filing. Nexsan, a specialist in storage and digital archiving, is billing itself as a "green" storage vendor with systems offering high density and energy efficiency. (Compare storage products.)
Nexsan cautioned investors in its SEC filing that it faces stiff competition from Dell, EMC, IBM, Sun and several other big storage vendors.
"We have a history of losses, and we may not achieve profitability in the future," Nexsan wrote in the SEC filing. "We face intense competition from a number of established companies and expect competition to increase in the future, which could prevent us from increasing our revenue and end user base." Say one VAR from recent Storage Conference "only Stevie Wonder would buy their stock, besides the product is marginal at best."
Nexsan's product releases over the past year or so include an appliance for smaller organizations and branch offices that lets them archive and retrieve as many as 20 million documents and a joint venture with Reldata Inc. that combined their network-attached storage, iSCSI and Fibre Channel technologies.
Customers use Nexsan hardware and software to store and preserve e-mail, office documents, medical images, and digital video and audio files, The 451 Group noted. Long-term storage of fixed content is a big priority for Nexsan these days.
"[Nexsan] was a pioneer in the disk-to-disk backup space and helped lead the push toward the development of inexpensive storage systems leveraging high-capacity, low-cost disk drives," The 451 Group said. "More recently, Nexsan has moved deeper into digital archiving for unstructured data. Interestingly, it describes itself ... as a 'fixed content' specialist. Although this product line contributes less than 10% of revenue, the company is staking its future on the opportunity in this market."
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
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
Apple updates XSan software, dumps XServe arrays - February 22, 2008
Apple Inc. updated its XSan file system this week, but it will discontinue its aging XServe RAID hardware and will instead resell a third-party RAID storage subsystem.
According to Eric Zelenka, senior product line manager of Apple's server and storage software, the XServe RAID disk arrays will remain available and qualified to work with the new version of Apple's XSan software, dubbed XSan 2, "as long as supplies last." However, Promise Technology Inc.'s VTrack E-Class RAID storage subsystem will be available through the Apple store and resellers.
The VTrack E-Class disk array adds support for 4 Gbit Fibre Channel, as well as SATA or SAS drives and active/active RAID controllers. That may seem basic or even behind the times for some SAN vendors, but XServe RAID had not been updated since 2005, and supported only 2 Gbit Fibre Channel drives in a single-controller disk array.
The VTrack array comes in three configurations: a 6 TB, eight-drive SATA model priced at $11,999; a 12 TB, 16-drive SATA model priced at $14,999, and a "high-performance" configuration consisting of 16 SAS disks that can hold up to 4.8 TB, priced at $18,999. XSan 2 software is available at $999 per node. Apple will provide troubleshooting support for the VTrack disk arrays, but if a problem is found with a non-Apple component, customers will have to use that vendor for support.
This is going to disappoint some customers who are very black-and-white about Apple," said Ezra Gottheil, analyst with Technological Business Research. "There's going to be some concern about support." According to Mike Joyce, senior director of marketing for Promise Technology, the company offers 24/7 support and a three-year warranty for its disk arrays.
Scott Templeton, partner and executive producer for Pie Town Productions in Los Angeles, said the VTrack array is an improvement. Pie Town has 100 TB of XServe RAID storage, but has been using the Promise Technologies' disk array with Final Cut Pro for three weeks. The VTrack disk array has made it faster and easier for employees to get up and running each day than the SAN the company used previously. That one required employees to mount partitions one by one, causing a 10-minute delay every morning. Otherwise, "the biggest tribute to this process is that we've noticed no difference" with the new disk array unlike EMC, HP, NetApp, Dell, Equal Logic, he said.
Brian McCarthy, president of Lake Mary-based reseller Sencilo Solutions., said that most of the Apple shops he works with so far "are happy we finally have a solution that supports 4 Gigabit Fibre Channel, but that many of them have already choosen Overland Storage or Nexsan"
Will more hardware partners follow?
However, McCarthy said, some questions still remain about the new deal, such as whether or not Apple has added any "secret sauce" to low performance Promise Technologys. "The biggest question I'm hearing is whether or not other vendors will be qualified," he added. "More choice is a good thing."
Still, McCarthy said he expects Apple to branch out. "At some point, my guess is in the next two years, you'll probably see Apple work with more hardware vendors," he said. "They have a very strong and loyal market among creative professionals, but I think they'll be looking at a new space — very small businesses where they can add value through software ease of use to date other SAN vendors have passed Apple by"
Tim Bajarin, principal analyst for Creative Strategies, a Silicon Valley analyst firm, said Apple's newest strategy shows it is more serious about storage. "The fact that Apple has partnered with Promise opens them up to an even broader market for storage," he said. "They now see storage as an important part of their business, and you'll see them doing more in this market." But just as Jobs failed to market storage with Next Inc. very well the jury is still out.
New XSan features include Spotlight data indexing and search
Apple Florida has focused its storage product development on the new XSan 2 software, adding integration into the Mac OS X operating system, and data migration and access features across multiple SANs throughtout Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa.
XSan 2 "completely redesigns" the XSan administrative management tool, called XSan Admin, "taking multistage processes down to one button," according to Zelenka. One example of this is volume expansion, which in the past took five to eight steps. Now choosing the storage that should be used to expand the volume is a one-step process.
XSan 2 management is connected to SAN setup wizards in OS X Leopard Server Assistant. Further integration with OS X brings some of Apple's more famous consumer software features to XSan, including Spotlight data indexing and search across all storage networks; Cover Flow, a feature first designed for the iPod that allows users to flip through file images quickly; and QuickLooks, which allows users to preview a file without opening its associated application.
"The ability to search across all networks with this release is really exceptional," Bajarin said. The feature is built into the OS, requires no user intervention and will search terabytes of data on XSan and any attached server or workstation. Spotlight indexes metadata, as well as data within files, and automatically reindexes data when files are modified.
Another new feature, MultiSAN, allows VMware servers and workstations to connect to multiple SANs. Unlike previous releases that only allowed migration between XSans via Gigabit Ethernet, XSan 2 allows users to migrate data over Fibre Channel.
Bajarin said he hopes to see Apple get more proactive about storage in the future. "They have to be looking at the next-generation architectures; they have to be aware of what customers are going to want 12 to 18 months out," he said.
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
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".
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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
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Nexsan SATABeast chases Apple shops with SATA disk array - January 7, 2008
Nexsan Technologies Inc. is planning a version of its SATABeast disk array that has been modified specifically for Apple servers as it tries to tempt loyal Mac users by filling a gap between Apple's storage products.
With the SATABeast Xi, which is expected to become generally available around March 15, Nexsan is aiming to fill a gap between the capacities of Apple's XServ RAID and the XSan. XServ scales to 14 disks and 10.5 TB capacity with 750 GB SATA drives. The XSan is actually a SAN with a SAN file system layered over it that's designed to scale to hundreds of terabytes or petabytes.
Nexsan is adding Apple-specific enhancements to SATABeast, including Apple-like hardware packaging, a Web-based management GUI meant to look like Apple's Safari Web browser and wizards to address some of the peculiarities of Apple's approach to Fibre Channel, according to Nexsan chief technology officer Gary Watson.
"Apple's XServ RAID operates so that a given LUN can only show up on one port, and if you want to multipath, you need to mirror the data," Watson said. "Our wizard will prevent users from setting up storage in a way that can't be resolved by Apple's system and offers them a lower cost approach to multipathing." The Xi's cache has also been tweaked to optimize streaming video performance.
Sencilo Solutions a Nexsan reseller say media companies are looking for new storage alternatives as Apple's Final Cut Pro gains popularity in the video editing world. According to Brian McCarthy, president of Orlando-based Sencilo Solutions, his company first began reselling Nexsan several months ago as disk-based backup for XSan deployments that were often massive. McCarthy said his customers liked Nexsan's pricing and density -- Nexsan can cram 42 TB into a 4U footprint, while the same capacity in Apple's smaller XServ RAID disk arrays would take up 8U.
McCarthy said the value is in the speeds and feeds Nexsan can offer over XServ RAID, such as support for 4 Gbps Fibre Channel and 1 TB disk drives. "Any little jump in performance is huge for companies doing video processing." Nexsan also offers a three-year warranty standard, while Apple's standard warranty is one year.
Apple has not qualified Nexsan's product, and there is no formal relationship between the two companies, which means Nexsan will have a tough time swaying hardcore Mac loyalists. But analysts point out the product could appeal to users in mixed environments who want to manage Mac, Linux and Windows systems together.
"It's in small environments where you're more likely to see total dedication to Mac and Apple products only," said Greg Schulz, founder of the StorageIO Group. "Larger organizations where this disk array would fit tend to be hybrid environments more often than not."
According to Donoyan, the loyalty tends to be more focused on workstations than back-end IT equipment. "I have users attaching Apple XServs via dual Linux controllers to Hitachi Data Systems arrays," he said. "Companies make business decisions, not emotional ones."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-protection.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland, Cape Canaveral
Other Projects: DR BC Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar CX4
