Storage News
Best Practices for Tier 0 Storage - January 22, 2009
Tampa Florida -- Companies are starting to use solid-state drive (SSD) technology in a high-performance tier of storage called Tier 0.
Tier 1 storage, also known as production storage, can be considered the first class cabin for production data. Tier 2 and lower storage tiers were developed to handle data that is not quite as critical or does not need the performance characteristics of Tier 1 storage.
Now there's a new tier of storage: Tier 0. Tier 0 is solid-state memory-based storage which is used to improve performance beyond what current Tier 1 storage can offer. In the past, Tier 0 storage has been in the form of a RAM disk and was quite expensive. In fact, to justify the high cost of RAM disk, you had to not only know for certain that your performance problems were storage-based, but also be able to show a return on your investment in RAM disk.
Today, however, this is changing. The dropping cost of solid-state devices is making SSD technology more accessible throughout the data center. But while these cost reductions in SSDs are broadening the technology's appeal, the primary consideration for when a company chooses a SSD option is still performance.
Matching the performance of a 4U SSD would take a huge and expensive disk array with a large disk LUN striped across many drives. As always, simplicity wins out. Given the choice between a simple 4U SSD or a large disk array with a complex drive setup, many customers are choosing SSDs, says Brian McCarthy of Sencilo Solutions.
SSDs come in two forms: RAM-based systems and flash memory-based systems. Flash memory is what is changing the SSD landscape. Although flash does not have the performance of a RAM-based system, flash is significantly faster than traditional disk-based arrays -- even the top-performing arrays -- making it, for some data centers, the perfect solution.
RAM-based systems are more expensive than flash. For instance, a common capacity purchasing point today for flash-based SSDs is 2 TB. That 2 TB of flash memory would typically list for about $190,000. A common RAM-based capacity purchase is 128 GB and that would list for about $70,000. If a RAM-based SSD were purchased in 2 TB, it would come to more than $1 million.
While sales of flash-based systems are now outpacing RAM-based systems (in total capacity), RAM-based SSD systems sales are increasing on a per-unit basis as well. When you need RAM-based performance, you can usually justify the extra expenditure.
Unlike flash-based SSDs, RAM-based systems are not sensitive to the amount of data being written to them. There is a theoretical limit to the amount of writes that a flash-based system can handle. Additionally, flash-based systems do not offer the same level of write performance as RAM-based systems.
As a result, in scenarios where there are very active files with significant write I/O like those that have redo logs or Undo Segments, RAM-based systems are usually the better alternative. Database environments where redo logs or Undo Segments are choking current disk I/O capabilities are where the most significant I/O increase can be measured and the return on investment quickly realized.
How to create a Tier 0
The first step in establishing a Tier 0 is identifying the data that should go on the system. With RAM-based systems, these are applications with high write I/O transactions. In these applications, specific files can be identified as "hot," meaning that the files are so active they need more I/O than the disk subsystem can deliver.
Let's return to the situation above, where redo logs or Undo Segments from databases are placed on a RAM disk. The three most likely solutions are to upgrade to a faster (and more expensive) disk array; spread the data across more drives in the array (leaving you more vulnerable to a double drive failure); or buy an SSD. These high write I/O applications are ideal for RAM-based systems as opposed to flash memory. The other driving factor in RAM SSD installations is low latency. For many applications, latency is more important than absolute peak IOPS numbers, though the best combinations offer both low latency and high IOPS.
Data that would do well on flash-based systems is from read-intensive applications or at least those with a more normal level of writes. If the flash system has a large enough RAM cache, it can also support high bursts of writes, meaning it is suited to applications that require significant disk I/O but where individual hot files cannot be identified, such as data warehouses.
Flash-based systems offer higher capacities than RAM-based systems, as well as lower power consumption. Because of the capacities available with flash-based SSD, it is now possible to move entire databases onto a SSD.
Protecting Tier 0
How can you protect this new Tier 0? It is, after all, memory. Flash is typically sold in modules that are grouped in an array set, with one module designated as a parity drive. This effectively builds a RAID 3 protection strategy. Also, like the memory in your USB thumb drive, flash drives do not need power to maintain stored data.
But since RAM drives do require power at all times, protection becomes an overriding concern. Some RAM-based systems use battery backup and have built-in hard drives to store data in the event the system is shut down manually or by a power outage. During a power loss, the system's battery will keep the unit running and the system will copy its contents to the hard disk drive(s), in case power does not return before the battery runs out.
RAM-based SSDs also leverage error correcting memory (ECC) and IBM's Chipkill technology. (HP offers an equivalent system, called Chipspare.) These technologies offer a form of advanced error checking and correcting (ECC) technology that protects computer memory systems from any single memory chip failure, as well as multi-bit errors from any portion of a single memory chip.
For example, Chipkill performs this function by scattering the bits of an ECC word across multiple memory chips, such that the failure of any one memory chip will affect only one ECC bit. This allows the system to reconstruct the contents of the memory contents, despite the complete failure of one chip.
Chipkill is frequently combined with dynamic bit steering, so that if a chip fails (or exceeds a threshold of bit errors), a spare memory chip replaces the failed chip. The concept is similar to that of RAID, which protects against disk failure, except that now the concept is applied to individual memory chips. When Chipkill was developed by IBM in the 1990s, it was focused on mainframes and high-end Unix systems, but it is now being utilized in SSD. A study done by IBM on the effect of Chipkill suggests that it decreases the likelihood of data loss in a memory system by two orders of magnitude.
RAM-based systems: Are they green?
Are RAM-based systems green? On a power per TB comparison, the answer is no, but that comparison is not real-world. The traditional method of getting more performance to an application hungry for disk I/O is to create LUNs with a high drive count in them. The more drive spindles in the array group, the faster the disk I/O performance. These extra drives require more power and typically, especially in non-virtualized storage technology, there is a vast amount of wasted disk capacity, especially in non-virtualized storage environments. The user has to sacrifice effective capacity utilization for speed.
SSDs do not need extra spindles; they deliver high speed out of the box. The result is a lower number of devices and therefore a lowering of power consumption rates.
Performance expectations
A typical hard disk drive performs 4- to 5-msec reads or writes and approximately 150-300 random I/Os per second. A RAM-based SSD does .015 msec reads and writes and about 400,000 I/Os per second. A flash-based SSD does about 0.2 msec reads and 2-msec writes. I/O performance is 100,000 random I/O per second on reads and 25,000 I/Os per second on writes.
Texas Memory Systems has developed a cached flash SSD. By leveraging a RAM-based cache, it delivers similar performance numbers to RAM-based SSD on cache hits and as a result delivers the best of both worlds.
Companies who pioneered the SSD market, such as Texas Memory Systems, are now being joined by storage array manufacturers like EMC, Sun, NetApp and Hitachi Data Systems in an attempt to address this rapidly expanding market. NetApp and HDS, for example are expected to deliver SSD solutions this year as well.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/prod-ssd.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
Disaster Recovery Planning Starts Before the Disaster - December 19, 2008
Tampa Florida -- The corporate headquarters building for OSI Restaurant Partners is a mere 800 feet from the end of runway at Tampa International Airport. But according to OSI Chief Information Officer Dusty Williams, that's the least of their concerns.
OSI, the company that owns popular restaurant-chain brands such as Outback Steakhouse, Roy's and Carraba's Italian Grill, is smack dab in the eye of the storm zone, in hurricane country. Their 750-person operation in Tampa includes all back office functions, including the financial, legal and real estate divisions. If a hurricane strikes and the building is impacted, the amount of sensitive data that is at stake is immeasurable.
"We're in an A zone as far as flooding is concerned. You don't really want your data center here."
The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season produced a record number of consecutive storms, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The season saw a total of 16 named storms. With water temperatures rising due to climate change, many meteorological experts predict even tougher seasons to come. For companies in a hurricane zone, business continuity and disaster recovery preps need to be in place now, and not when the storm clouds begin churning.
It is that kind of thinking that inspired Williams to find a new home for the data center. In 2003, the main data center in headquarters had no back up power and a business continuity/disaster recovery plan was a vague notion. Williams got initial approval to move OSI's data center to an off-site facility hosted by backup and storage service provider Qwest.
"Typically when we talk BC/DR, it's always around hurricanes. The plan was to move the data center locally to a Qwest facility," said Williams. "The building itself is a category 3 or 4 that is built to sustain hurricane damage and has back up and battery power that we don't have in the headquarters facility."
Within months, the plan was put to the test. Florida experienced a severe hurricane season in 2004. Williams said Hurricane Charley illuminated the fact that they had made the right decision to move data off-site.
"On a Thursday night at 5 o'clock, officials told us they would be shutting power down to the grid we are on. So, if we had not outsourced the data center, we would have been dead in the water. "
Williams said the entire summer of '04 was spent preparing for hurricanes. At least four blew through the area of varying intensity. While no major damage was sustained, when the season was over, it became clear that the BC/DR plan needed to include more than just one off-site data facility. OSI now has a second cyber center in Chicago that includes all critical systems. The company has more than 1200 restaurants around the country. The Chicago center would allow OSI and its restaurants to have operations back up and running within a few hours if the Florida off-site facility went down, according to Williams' estimate.
OSI's BC/DR plan is tested regularly to ensure connectivity to restaurants is maintained. Williams says he tests by bringing the main data center down and bringing the Chicago facility online.
Outsourcing the data center is crucial to any business with a natural disaster risk, according to Iain Hardcastle, senior consultant with professional services firm Deloitte & Touche at their operations in Bermuda. On the small island where his company operates, there is only one power supply. The local office, which stores all data on a SAN, also replicates the information at a local data hosting center.
"The accounting side of our business is managing trust funds and looking after accounts for many name-plate companies. They can be absolutely multimillion-dollar, global clients. They dont care if we have a bit of a weather problem down here."
"Buns on seats" preparations
The data is only one part of the picture when it comes to business continuity in a natural disaster-prone area. If a facility goes down because of power failure or flooding, many organizations need a physical location to place their staff so operations can continue. Deloitte has what Hardcastle refers to as a "buns on seats" office off-island. So, too, does OSI. OSI maintains a comprehensive facility in Atlanta, which they have had to use at least twice in the last 4 years.
"Once we declare a disaster, we have 50 cubes available there," said Williams. "But we have to go up and make sure everything is up and running and ready. So we have people, from an IT perspective, head up 72 hours out ahead of any storm in private aircrafts to make sure everything is ready to go."
Sometimes it isnt just humans that need to be relocated. One year, according to Williams, OSI tried to send a check printer up in a plane so vendor checks could continue to be cut. Unfortunately, the machine didn't fit through the door of the aircraft. The check printer was delivered to Atlanta by van instead.
The process of relocating people, and sometimes equipment is time consuming, labor intensive and costly. The company even has contracting companies on standby for employees that may need assistance with boarding up houses before they depart. As complicated as it all sounds, Williams says, thankfully, most of it can be planned.
"With hurricanes, you have a distinct advantage over an earthquake or a tornado. You really don't know when they will strike."
Can you ever be completely prepared?
Even the most comprehensive BC/DR plan isn't without some risk, according to Hardcastle, who calls the Sencilo Solutions BC/DR plan a "continuously evolving process."
Williams admits he is still troubled at the prospect of keeping track of personnel in a worst case scenario.
"I dont worry as much abut the technical side of it as a do the operations/people side of it. How do you find people?" he said.
OSI says disaster plans are also considered regionally for all of its 1200-plus restaurants and each have special numbers set up so people can dial-in and alert the company as to where they are.
"But you worry about how long that will take if cell service, phone service, is down" said Williams.
And despite the plans put in place at the headquarters building, there will still inevitably be some loss if the facility itself is damaged in high winds or flood waters, said Williams.
"Sometimes people have paper on their desk that they havent put into a system yet. In those cases you need to ensure you have connections with vendors to ask them "How can we get your invoice back in here and get you paid?"
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/back-up-restore.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
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
Best Practices for Enterprise Solid State-Disk (SSD) - November 7, 2008
Orlando Florida --- Although solid-state disk (SSD) drives have seen insignificant adoption in the PC market, considerable excitement exists in the enterprise space for these devices. The key reason is speed. Although the price per gigabyte for an SSD drive is prohibitive in comparison to that of a traditional hard disk drive (HDD), there are server applications that use large numbers of HDDs at a fraction of their capacity to increase I/O bandwidth. In many cases, an SSD can provide more speed at an adequate capacity for a reasonable price.
"The difference between an enterprise server and a PC is that enterprise servers use a number of HDDs, whereas a PC uses only one. In a multiple-HDD system, mass storage is ranked into a storage hierarchy, with faster, more costly storage devices being placed in small amounts nearer to the processor and slower, cheaper storage devices used in larger capacities further from the processor," says Brian McCarthy CEO/President of Sencilo Solutions in Lake Mary Florida. In today's systems, the more expensive storage devices consist of enterprise-class HDDs -- disks with a high I/O rate because of high spindle speeds, wider tracks, and faster, more expensive interfaces such as Fibre Channel and SAS. Slower bulk storage devices are typically based on the same low-cost HDDs that are prevalent in PCs. This is the storage hierarchy typical of all computers, which extends all the way from processor caches down to archival storage.
An example of this hierarchy is shown in the figure, which gives a rough idea of where the different elements of the storage hierarchy fit from the perspectives of bandwidth and cost per gigabyte. We use a log-log chart format to allow us to see all the data that would be hidden if we were to use a linear scale for either performance or cost. The three orbs labeled L1, L2, and L3 are three possible layers of cache in or around the processor.
Since NAND's price per gigabyte has fallen below that of DRAM in recent years, system designers have found interesting ways to tap into NAND technology to improve performance while lowering costs. Flash SSDs are one means of reaching that goal, something McCarthy says he had worked on earlier in his career at Intel.
Enterprise-class HDDs fit at the top end of the HDD oval in the figure. As flash-based SSDs move into this market they pose a significant threat to enterprise HDDs, and many OEMs and IT managers expect future systems to be built using a combination of SSDs for speed and low-price HDDs for mass storage, eliminating the enterprise HDDs that might otherwise be used between low-cost HDDs and DRAM.
Flash SSD manufacturers have been working over the past few years to produce units that satisfy the enterprise server OEMs' needs at a satisfactory price. Their first offerings were expensive (about $10,000) so these devices are currently are being used to replace the most costly types of HDD-based enterprise arrays: those comprising short-stroked drives.
What is short stroking?
Short stroking is an approach to achieving the maximum possible performance from an enterprise HDD. The technology is relatively common, although the proportion of the overall enterprise HDD market that is used in this way is small. Objective Analysis estimates that less than 10% of all enterprise HDDs are short-stroked. The figure on p. 29 illustrates the basics of short stroking.
Two causes of delay in an HDD are access time and rotational latency. Access time is the time required for the disk's head to find a requested track, often referred to as "seek time," and depends on the distance from the current track to the requested track. Rotational latency is the time it takes for the requested data to move under the head after the head has found the right track.
While a programmer can do little to improve the latency, other than to use high-RPM disks, programmers can ensure that the head motion, and thus the access time, is as small as possible. This is done by using only a few adjacent tracks on the disk and completely ignoring the rest of the disk -- a process referred to as "short stroking."
While a short-stroked drive will only access a fraction of the available disk space, the data will be read off the disk at a significantly higher speed than normal. A disk with tens of IOPS can be "coaxed" into providing data at a few hundred IOPS by using this method. In some cases, users find that this is a worthwhile trade-off.
Another trick programmers can use to accelerate I/O is to use only the tracks at the outer edge of the disk. Data on the outer tracks is accessed at a higher rate, so transactions on these tracks are significantly faster.
An example of this approach is IBM's high-end Tier-1 storage system: the DS8300 Turbo. Offering 123,000 IOPS and a maximum latency of 16ms, this system includes 512 HDDs, in a mix of 73GB and 146GB capacities, which are mirrored and configured in a RAID formation.
Because of the redundant data required, and the fact that the drives are short-stroked, the system's 53TB of internal storage capacity whittles down to only 9TB of usable space.
An SSD can often support tens of times the IOPS of a short-stroked HDD. Often the higher bandwidth of the SSD, in tandem with the very small capacity actually used in a short-stroked HDD, will provide an opportunity for an SSD to replace a bank of HDDs. As long as the SSD's capacity is as great as that used in the short-stroked HDDs, and as long as the SSD's bandwidth matches that of the HDD array at a competitive price, the SSD may provide a more cost-effective alternative to an array of HDDs. This is the case in most of today's deployments of SSDs in enterprise environments.
Objective Analysis believes the market for short-stroked enterprise HDDs will be the first market to completely convert from HDDs to SSDs.
SSD market forecasts
Objective Analysis has arrived at estimates for the enterprise SSD market through two unrelated forecasting techniques. One of our forecasts uses the enterprise HDD forecasts of Coughlin Associates and applies some judgment to the numbers. This forecast results in strong similarities to the "bottom-up" forecast we derived by using a thorough analysis of each enterprise application type.
Our bottom-up forecast finds that the enterprise SSDs will first be adopted in transaction processing systems, but over the long term even stronger growth will occur in large Internet systems.
Our top-down forecast is based upon the following assumptions:
--5% to 10% of enterprise HDDs are short-stroked. This estimate is based on conversations with many parties in the industry;
--Acceptance of enterprise SSDs will be slow at first as IT managers evaluate the risks of introducing this new technology;
--SSD prices will decline with the conversion to MLC NAND flash technology and as SSD designers find ways to substantially reduce other manufacturing costs; and
--Today, arrays of 10 or more short-stroked HDDs can be economically replaced by a single SSD. As enterprise SSD prices decline, one SSD may economically replace even fewer enterprise HDDs.
This gives us a unit shipment forecast that grows from almost negligible shipments today to 1.7 million units in 2013 -- an average annual growth rate of nearly 150%.
Our revenue forecast is driven by this unit shipment forecast. It indicates that enterprise SSD revenues will grow at a strong 67% rate through the forecast cycle, based upon very strong 148% unit growth somewhat offset by an average annual price decline of 40%.
Enterprise SSD unit shipments will grow in 2013 to nearly 100× the expected shipments for 2008. In 2013, SSD revenues are expected to exceed $1 billion.
Enterprise HDDs are threatened by this new technology, which will initially replace enterprise HDDs at a 10:1 ratio, dropping to 3:1 by the end of the forecast period. This means that the enterprise HDD market will shrink faster than the enterprise SSD market can grow.
Summary
The enterprise server market is warming up to SSDs faster than has happened in the PC market, and with good reason. Today, entire arrays of costly high-speed enterprise HDDs can be economically replaced with a single enterprise-class SSD. Although enterprise SSDs are anything but cheap, at close to $10,000 each, they can often be used to replace an array of 10 or more HDDs, providing more speed in a much smaller footprint for about the same price.
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 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
HP and Ocarina Networks now offering Primary Storage Compression via Sencilo Solutions - October 17, 2008
Lake Mary, Florida -- Ocarina Networks today announced that it will implement its content-aware compression and deduplication for primary storage to optimize the storage capacity of the HP family of Scalable Network Attached Storage (NAS) platforms, including the HP StorageWorks 9100 Extreme Data Storage System (ExDS9100).
Ocarina's software stack for HP Scalable NAS offerings includes content-aware deduplication for primary storage, content-aware compression, as well as ECOsnap content-aware snapshots, allowing a customer to use the HP Scalable NAS offerings as a massive time-sequenced repository with as much as 200:1 data reduction over time. The resulting solution will include features unique for HP Scalable NAS products, including time-sequenced snapshots, metadata acceleration, and a global namespace that allows multiple HP Scalable NAS platforms to look like one larger pool of storage.
Ocarina is a leader in building storage features that use data reduction to deliver complete capacity optimized storage, says Brian McCarthy CEO and well known Storage Expert for more then 25 years. In customer implementations, Ocarina's storage optimization technology has helped customers store ten times more data on storage they already own, says McCarthy. Ocarina's award-winning self-optimizing, content-aware dedupe solution will support Scalable NAS products, offering customers comparable improvements in storage efficiency on a single integrated platform, unlike a Data Domain which requires propriety disks and complex electronics.
HP StorageWorks NAS is part of the Ocarina ECOsphere, Ocarina's optimized storage partner program for combining Ocarina technologies with partner storage offerings to create capacity optimized storage solutions for customers.
"Ocarina's content-aware offerings coupled with the HP Extreme Data Storage solution represents a major step forward in addressing storage needs for online and digital media businesses," said Murli Thirumale, CEO of Ocarina Networks. "The combination of our primary storage dedupe and compression solution with HP's ExDS9100 forms a true capacity optimized Scalable NAS solution."
Integrated Platform Nails Dedupe for Primary Data
Unstructured data -- rich media files, email, compound business documents and PDF files -- pose a problem for simple dedupe solutions. Ocarina's content-aware solution is able to achieve results on these and other image-rich file types where traditional dedupe may disappoint. As a result, Ocarina is able to address the capacity optimized storage needs of markets like large Web 2.0 sites, seismic archives for oil/gas companies, image archives for healthcare, post-production graphics for movie studios and game developers, as well as the needs of the broad file/print marketplace.
Ocarina's compression solution, which can run directly on up to all 16 blades of an HP ExDS9100 storage platform, offers up to 10:1 in initial data reduction on already compressed file types that are driving massive storage growth. When running Ocarina ECOsnap to create a time-sequenced repository, data reduction can climb to as much as 200:1.
"While data deduplication has transformed the way that backups are made and stored, the benefits of data reduction for archival and primary data could be significant as well," said Dave Russell, research vice president at Gartner. "The marketplace is ready for solutions that use data reduction techniques to address the capacity issues of all types of data. The idea of compression and dedupe integrated directly into the storage is one that many customers are going to find compelling."
The Ocarina-HP StorageWorks NAS Solution
Ocarina's technology will deliver three features for HP's Extreme Data Storage platform:
-- Ocarina ECOsnap: This time-sequenced hyper-compressed repository
snapshot feature means users can keep a once-a-day snapshot of all their
files for as much as ten years worth of data in a very small storage
footprint. ECOsnap can extend Ocarina's 10:1 data reduction on the first
snap of a set of files to up to 200:1 data reduction across a set of
snapshots taken every day over a period of time.
-- Ocarina NameSpace: This feature allows a set of file systems to appear
as one large volume, giving users a nearly unlimited pool of storage, which
will appear as a unified, self-optimizing repository.
-- Ocarina Metadata Accelerator: This feature accelerates metadata
performance for listing files and directories in a large repository.
Ocarina's relationship with HP includes a porting effort by Ocarina, as well as mutual support and escalation to ensure customers of the combined solution receive the support they need. Ocarina Storage Optimization solutions will be sold by Ocarina to be installed on HP Scalable NAS products, including the HP ExDS9100, as a validated application.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
Best Practices for Data Reduction - Ocarina Networks - September 27, 2008
Storage optimization vendor says its ECO System delivers 10:1 data reduction ratios
Tampa Florida -- The explosion of data and storage, and the requirement that information be stored in an economical manner that allows for easy retrieval and recovery has fueled a boom in tools and tactics to compress, de-dupe, and generally reduce the amount that is being dumped on disk drives, tapes, and other types of storage systems.
Data reduction startup Ocarina Networks , which emerged from stealth mode earlier this year, has expanded its ECO System storage optimization offering with a host of new features and the ability to shrink a wider range of file types in order to appeal to more companies and industries. It promises to deliver a 10-to-1 reduction in the data footprint of files.
"We shrink things more than any other competing technology," boasted Carter George, vice president of products and technology, to Byte and Switch, "and we do it with your existing storage technology and processes. We work on the files you already have and on the technology you already have."
Ocarina takes a three-step ECO process to compress files. Carter says most files like email, photos, videos, music, and every document created in Microsoft Office are already compressed when they're saved, and it's hard to shrink files that have already been compressed. So Ocarina identifies a file type and decompresses it to its original raw format in a process it calls "Extract," which is done in the background and can be managed through policies. It then "Correlates" and checks to see if the data is duplicated so it can eliminate copies, such as a photo that is stored, then used in a PowerPoint presentation, and later used in a company white paper. Then it "Optimizes," using a content-aware compressor and more than 100 algorithms to shrink around 500 files types, and writes the de-duped and compressed data back to disk.
The compression appliance was originally targeted at online photo-sharing sites, but now includes a batch of new file types to serve the media and entertainment, oil and gas, and medical image archive markets. New features include one-step file migration and optimization, time-sequenced file versioning and viewing, and virtual global namespaces.
Ocarina is competing in a market with a number of strong competitors, including Data Domain Inc. (Nasdaq: DDUP), NetApp Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), Riverbed Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: RVBD), and a host of others that offer data de-duplication. Larger storage vendors have, or will soon include, these optimization capabilities in their products, which will pose another challenge to Ocarina.
Gartner Research vice president David Russell says Ocarina's "secret sauce" is the ability to crack up proprietary and already compressed files and work its compression magic on a variety of raw formats: "A lot of vendors are already doing data de-duplication, but Ocarina is taking it a little bit further by being able to handle multiple workloads. The current state of the art in data de-duplication and data reduction is becoming compelling for users with a growing amount of data to store."
Advances in this area will be transformational, Russell believes, and the industry is just at the beginning of what it should able to accomplish in terms of shrinking data across all workloads. The challenge for these niche vendors, however, is whether they're offering a product or a feature that in the long run will be incorporated into larger storage systems. "The conventional trend in technology is that products like these end up as features," he says.
George understands that challenge and says Ocarina is prepared to go the partnership route. The company has inked deals with Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and Isilon Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ISLN) and expects to announce several more before year's end. "We're talking to every major file server vendor right now, and we're happy to be an arms merchant for storage vendors."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
Data Compression for Primary Storage - Medical Imaging to benefit - September 27, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Primary data reduction startup Ocarina Networks disclosed plans at Storage Decisions this week to add data migration features, snapshots, support for virtual global namespace and file compression by industry type to its compression appliance.
The product upgrade is the first major enhancement to the Ocarina ECO System compression appliance since the startup emerged from stealth in April. Ocarina's initial launch was aimed mainly at photo-sharing websites, and now it is expanding into the entertainment, oil and gas, and medical imaging markets.
ECOmove is a new utility designed to help users migrate data from primary storage to nearline compressed archives. "Generally, data is left on Tier 2 storage only 30 to 90 days," said Carter George, vice president of products for Ocarina. "But it takes 18 months to make a movie, and some movie studios that have our product want to be able to keep all files associated with a project online for the duration of that project." Ocarina claims to be able to further compress even already compressed file formats, such as JPEGs, allowing for the retention of more multimedia data on disk.
ECOsnap creates what George called "archive-appropriate snapshots." That means "it's not copy-on-write or snapshots for backup. This reads a file and shrinks it, and then instead of storing a new shrunk file, consolidates it together with existing versions in the archive." The feature is similar to NetApp's space-efficient snapshots, but for photos. "It creates a time-sequenced archive with a time-slider user interface so that, for example, movie artists can say, 'show me this scene as it looked three months ago,'" George said.
ECO System now supports virtual global namespaces based on its ability to put pointers to compressed data in "suitcases" within a file system. The new virtual global namespace allows customers to create a "suitcase of suitcases" so they can store and manage pointers to all files in a large file system.
As Ocarina looks to branch out into new market segments, it's adding compression support for new types of files used in different industries, including AVI, Maya and RenderMan files for the entertainment industry, online seismic data applications for the oil and gas industry, and X-Ray, MRI and PET scan images for the healthcare market.
Currently, Ocarina reduces only still images with video support planned for the next release in early 2009.
Ocarina adds new storage partners
Ocarina hasn't named any customers yet, but George said the vendor is making headway adding storage partners in the NAS space, including Hewlett-Packard, Isilon and Ibrix. HP will integrate Ocarina's compression with its ExDS9100 clustered NAS system when it's released later this year. "We currently have two systems installed with Isilon and four with HP," George said.
Gartner analyst David Russell predicts Ocarina's compression won't be a standalone product for long. "[Primary storage data reduction] is a feature that over time might become like compression in tapes," he said. "Starts as a standalone product, then becomes a feature and now even the cheapest autoloader has compression – you'd probably have to look up how to turn it off."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
What Data Domain does not want you to know about - Storwize Primary Storage Compression Appliances - August 19, 2008
Orlando Florida – Storwize Inc., the only provider of real-time primary storage data compression solutions, today introduced the next generation edition of its award-winning STN-6000™ product family. The Storwize P Series encompasses a family of products tailored for different customer environments, ranging from entry-level operations, to data center environments with tens of thousands of users in the most data-intensive industries, as well as oil and gas exploration and financial services.
Storwize has transitioned to a 64-bit architecture and is rolling out its high end appliance, the STN-6800p completing its solutions coverage for all market segments. The STN-6800p is designed to work with large-scale enterprise storage platforms such as the NetApp FAS6070 and the EMC Celerra NSX.
The three P Series models are application agnostic and provide optimized solutions across a range of environments:
• STN-6300p is the company’s entry-level model providing the same availability, reliability and efficiency of higher-end models
• STN-6500p is optimized for enterprise environments
• STN-6800p expands enterprise functionality to high-end environments performing large file processing on huge volumes of files
All three new models are also available in an optional High Availability configuration, which provides the highest level of mission critical information availability and ensures data integrity and business continuity.
“The P Series platform addresses all the distinct user requirements for cost, performance and application optimization across the full spectrum of IT users,” said Gal Naor, Storwize CEO. “Storwize now offers end to end solutions to all market segments from entry-level to high performance computing data center environments yielding dramatic data foot print reductions regardless of the vertical or data type at stake. Our customer successes validate the maturity, leadership and industry recognition that Storwize has well earned by creating the primary optimization market.”
According to Brian McCarthy President and a 25 year Storage veteran for Sencilo solutions of Orlando Florida, “Without question, Storwize is leading the way for primary storage capacity optimization and the P Series enhancements certainly raise the performance bar for this class of products. Most of the attention about data reduction technologies has been focused on secondary storage platforms but given the vast amounts of storage that companies are still struggling to manage, the substantial cost benefits of properly applied primary compression should cause IT departments everywhere to take a hard look at the advantages of the new STN-6000 Series.”
The Storwize family of real-time compression appliances allows companies to extend the lifecycle of their data center. All appliances in the Series are transparent to end users and applications, ensure data integrity and are vendor-agnostic. Simple plug-and-play, the P Series products are complementary to other solutions and technologies intended to reduce storage consumption, such as de-duplication, virtualization and thin provisioning.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
NetApp Adds De-Dupe Capabilities for Primary Storage but Storwize has something Better - August 5, 2008
Orlando Flordia --Network Appliance (NSDQ:NTAP) this week is bringing its data de-duplication technology to a wider channel and customer base by making it available for use with a wide range of data management applications.
De-duplication, also called "de-dupe," removes duplicate information as data is backed up or archived. It can be done on the file level, where duplicate files are replaced with a marker pointing to one copy of the file, and/or at the sub-file or byte level, where duplicate bytes of data are removed, resulting in a significant decrease in storage capacity requirements.
NetApp has had de-dupe technology for a couple of years as part of the NetApp advanced single-instance storage (A-SIS) technology for its NearStore and FAS storage systems, said Ravi Thota, director of the vendor's product marketing for data protection and retention.
A-SIS was part of the company's SnapVault for NetBackup, an application on which it cooperated with Symantec (NSDQ:SYMC). However, Thota said, it was limited to the NetBackup environment only.
Starting this week, however, NetApp is making de-dupe available on its FAS and its NearStore R200 storage systems regardless of which data management software is used, Thota said.
"It has been tested with CommVault, but works with others," he said. "And it works not just with backups, but with archival and primary storage, and it works in both file and block environments."
When used with a NetApp storage device, the software enables de-dupe of data once it arrives at the device, Thota said. Because de-dupe is done at the storage device, it can work with any vendor's software, he said.
Merrill Likes, president of UpTime, an Edmond, Okla.-based NetApp solution provider, said he is glad to see NetApp finally opening its de-dupe technology to non-NetBackup environments. "It will be very important with VTL (virtual tape library) technology going forward," Likes said. But not all resellers agree, Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions and 30 year storage veteran says "several of his NetApp customer have turned off A-SIS sighting very poor performance and data recovery issues." NetApp is just trying to play catch up and is doing a very poor job at it, says McCarthy.
However, Likes said he expects his customers to focus de-dupe on secondary storage for now, and stay away from using it with primary storage until the technology has a chance to prove itself, to this McCarthy agrees. NetApp is actually letting customers know this in a written bulletin and asking them to sign it, that they are a where of low performance issues."
"If de-dupe is used on primary storage, there will be overhead when rebuilding the data if there is a problem," he said. "Secondary storage provides fairly linear access to data, but on primary storage, there is more random access to the data."
The de-dupe feature is available free-of-charge on NetApp's NearStore R200 appliance, and as a $3,000 option for its FAS appliances.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-compression.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
