Vendor News
IT Cost Cutting Solutions - Part Two - Using Primary Storage Compression - January 23, 2009
Clearwater Florida -- With the amount of data growing by leaps and bounds every year, technologies that can make the most of storage capacity and reduce the amount of physical space, power and maintenance that storing terabytes or petabytes of data requires are becoming increasingly attractive to large and even mid-sized organizations.
Not surprisingly, analysts predict continued strong growth and adoption of secondary storage optimization and data de-duplication solutions over the next 12 months. In times like these, it's technology that sells itself.
Now, building on the success of secondary storage optimization (SSO), a number of vendors have introduced optimization solutions aimed directly at primary storage. Although it's early days for primary storage optimization (PSO), with only a few hundred confirmed customers, analyst Eric Burgener, who covers storage optimization for the Taneja Group, sees PSO and technologies like wide area data services (WADS) gaining momentum and making inroads with storage customers over the next year.
"Over the last four years, we've seen the growth rate for secondary storage optimization [take off]," said Burgener.
But when SSO first came on the scene, "people were very hesitant about the technology, because it was new and there hadn't been anything like this around before," he recalled. "Primary storage optimization is very similar to secondary storage optimization in terms of the concept. But this time around the concept's proven. People know that the technology works pretty much — and there are thousands of referenceable customers that are using secondary storage optimization technology," whom end users can talk to.
"So we think the growth of the market is going to happen much more rapidly in the PSO space, just because people are already generally familiar with that technology," he said. PSO and SSO use different algorithms, "but the concept is very similar."
Inline vs. Post-Processing
In defining the PSO market, Burgener identifies two distinct camps: the inline approaches (exemplified by Storwize) and the post-processing approaches (exemplified by NetApp and Ocarina Networks).
Which approach is right for optimally storing your primary data depends on the problem you are trying to solve, said Burgener. "There's no one [PSO] technology that's the best for all kinds of situations," he said. "The different approaches characterize what happens to writes to storage. All PSO solutions handle reads of capacity-optimized data at wire speeds."
By way of examples, Burgener cites Ocarina Networks as "the most application-specific player on the primary side," with, as of late September, 112 different algorithms — or 112 different file types that its Ocarina ECO System could identify, including TIFF, MPEG, Word, and PPT files.
"They've actually got an algorithm that's specific to each one of those," he said. "So if you're dealing with, say, pictures, or an online photo database, Ocarina [with its post-processing approach] is a pretty good fit for that — and why Kodak chose them, because these algorithms give them higher data reduction ratios than you could get out of a more generic technology like, for instance, what Storwize is using against that particular data set."
On the other hand, if your goal is to increase your storage capacity at every point in the data's lifecycle, you're probably better off using an inline approach, like Storwize's STN appliances use, said Burgener, because that data is constantly being optimized.
The difference, he said, is that "the Ocarina approach is going to end up using more storage capacity in the earlier days or weeks of a particular piece of data's lifecycle, but then it ends up reducing it as it gets older, whereas Storwize's approach is much more 'let's reduce it right away.'"
In addition to Storwize, Ocarina Networks and NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), which Burgener said has "basically packaged a de-duplication capability with their Data ONTAP operating system, so that every NetApp box that goes out has got that capability [to do PSO]," Burgener cites Hifn (NASDAQ: HIFN) and greenBytes as two players to watch in the PSO space.
With its Express DR family of PCI Express cards, Hifn OEM customers have a choice of using an inline or a post-processing approach to PSO, said Burgener, making the solution attractive to organizations with virtual tape libraries (VTLs) and backup appliances.
As for greenBytes, its new, just-coming-out-of-beta Cypress NAS, with its Sun/ZFS+-based approach, make it very appealing to Solaris users who are running ZFS, he said. "It also might make greenBytes an attractive acquisition candidate for Sun," he added.
Benefits of PSO
The main benefit of PSO is that it reduces the overall space and power required for primary storage. Primary Storage Optimization also "shortens overall backup-and-restore times, since less data must be written to or retrieved from disk for any given data set," explained Burgener, and, "in cases where data sets must be shipped across networks, the smaller, capacity-optimized data sets require less bandwidth, thereby reducing network traffic."
PSO can also be used with Secondary Storage Optimization solutions, oftentimes resulting in a significant overall reduction in space and power consumption. Though as Burgener cautioned, "data reduction ratios with combined use will vary based on the actual solutions used and the workload types. The only way to really understand the benefit PSO, or a combination of PSO and SSO together, will provide is to test it on specific workloads."
The Pitfalls
As with other storage technologies, there is a performance versus capacity trade-off with PSO. "Access latency is a problem that is a real concern for primary storage, though not so much for secondary storage," said Burgener.
"In-line approaches (the Storwize approach) have to deal with this; it's less of an issue for post-processing approaches (the Ocarina approach), but the issue with post-processing is that it will definitely require more storage capacity," he said. "How much more depends on what schedule the post-processing is run on (e.g., within hours of writing the data, within days of writing it, or within months of writing it, etc.)."
That's why, he noted, it's important for storage and network administrators to understand their organization's particular storage challenges and weigh the pros and cons of each approach before choosing a PSO solution.
The Future's So Bright
Over the next 12 months, Burgener sees the adoption rates for both primary and secondary storage optimization solutions accelerating. "There are still a lot of end users who have heard about the technology but don't really understand how it works yet, and as more and more vendors [like EMC, IBM and Symantec] get into the space, they're going to hear more about this."
Indeed, from what Burgener has seen happening in the storage industry, and the economic arguments for doing storage optimization being so compelling, he believes that PSO is almost a forgone conclusion. "Why would you spend 10 or 20 times as much to store a piece of data if you don't have to? And there's no risk associated with doing capacity optimization. I think we're going to see this penetrate rapidly."
"It's not there right now," he said, but over the course of the next 12 months he expects PSO adoptions to increase, though "we don't think the market is going to be as large as the secondary side, just because there's a lot less data."
Burgener also predicts that within the next 12 months or so, we're "going to see one or two of the WADS vendors [like Cisco or Riverbed] make public comments that are going to put them in direct competition with people like Storwize and Ocarina in the PSO space," as well as some industry consolidation as some of the larger players snap up the smaller, more specialized vendors (such as Sun Microsystems acquiring greenBytes).
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-reduction.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 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
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
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
Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 has it all - July 9, 2008
Lake Mary, Florida -- Symantec Corp. has announced Symantec Backup Exec 12 for Windows Servers, delivering disk-to-disk-to-tape backup and fast, efficient recovery.
Backup Exec 12 introduces certified and optimized support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, granular recovery of critical application data and extended platform protection. Backup Exec 12 now integrates with other Symantec solutions including the ThreatCon global security alerting system, Enterprise Vault to protect email archives and the new Symantec Protection Network for accessing offsite storage.
The software is logo-certified for Windows Server 2008.
Backup Exec 12 also introduces faster backup and restore of Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, and SharePoint environments as well as support for non-Microsoft environments.
“With each new Microsoft release, Symantec’s Backup Exec has helped us keep the critical flight information on our Microsoft servers and applications protected to ensure we can maintain a high level of service to our travelers,” said Barbara Hutchinson, executive director, Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport Authority. “Backup Exec 12 provides unmatched data protection and will enable us to recover important data from any system quickly and painlessly, reducing the time and resources spent managing backup and recovery jobs. Ensuring we have the latest version of Backup Exec is critical to helping us maximize the efficiency of our very small staff.”
With this software organizations are able to restore data to a point in time to help meet strict recovery point objectives. Backup Exec 12 rapidly restores data from a single pass backup with Granular Recovery Technology, which obviates the need to run mailbox backups to recover individual Exchange emails, and makes it easy to restore SharePoint, SharePoint Services, and Active Directory data — from documents to user attributes and properties.
Integration with Symantec Enterprise Vault provides backup and recovery for critical archives, while integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection delivers proactive backup in the event of an elevated Internet ThreatCon level.
Integration with Online Storage for Backup Exec, a Symantec Protection Network software as a service offering, provides secure web-based access to offsite storage maintained in Symantec data centers while Symantec’s complementary Backup Exec System Recovery solution offers complete Windows system recovery and advanced disaster recovery protection for Windows Server 2008 and other systems.
In addition, Backup Exec 12 extends protection to Macintosh systems as well as Lotus Domino servers and adds support for IBM N series devices and LTO-4 tape drives.
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 Backing up Virtual Machines with De-dupe - July 9, 2008
Orlando Florida -- EMC Corporation , the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, announced new data de-duplication capabilities that reduce the time it takes to backup virtual machines by up to 90%. Helping to advance its next- generation backup and recovery product portfolio, EMC(R) Avamar(R) software version 3.7 now supports VMware(R) Consolidated Backup (VCB) for the protection and reduction of backup times within and across virtual machines. Additionally, EMC Avamar has expanded its support to include EMC NS Celerra(R) network attached storage (NAS) systems. These Avamar software enhancements coupled with EMC's other new backup and recovery capabilities announcements help form the foundation of a next-generation backup infrastructure.
EMC Avamar backup and recovery software transforms the entire data-protection process using unique global data de-duplication technology that eliminates the unnecessary transmission of redundant backup data that is sent over the network and saved to secondary storage. "This helps customers manage the enormous amount of data growth both in core data centers and at remote offices", says Brian McCarthy President and Storage Veteran of Sencilo Solutions a pioneer in backup using de-dupe technologies. By de-duplicating at the source and across sites and servers, customers can dramatically shrink the amount of time required for backups, network utilization, and the growth of secondary storage, says McCarthy.
VMware Consolidated Backup, a component of VMware Infrastructure 3, the third generation of the industry-leading infrastructure virtualization software suite, simplifies data protection by offloading backup to a centralized server. Offloading backup allows VMware ESX Server, which is also part of VMware Infrastructure 3, to run more virtual machines by reducing its load, and it eliminates hardware dependencies and enables backup to occur safely even during production hours.
With Avamar's new support of VMware Consolidated Backup, VMware customers have a simplified way of de-duplicating backup data stored in virtual machines, greatly reducing the amount of data backed up and minimizing the impact on host servers. In many cases, customers can significantly reduce the size of backup data for virtual machines, resulting in reduced backup times and storage. Legacy solutions have challenges keeping pace with VMware software, creating problems for daily and weekly data protection. By eliminating redundant, unnecessary workload and data, customers leveraging Avamar can keep pace with virtualization, both for VMware Consolidated Backup and guest-level backups. Todate Sencilo Solutions has deployed some two peta-bytes of de-dupe technology.
Brian Byun, Vice President of Global Partners and Solutions at VMware, said, "VMware delivers a new model for today's data center, and we're excited to have EMC's Avamar software integrated with VMware Consolidated Backup. Organizations continue to look at ways they can improve the efficiency of their backup environments - from the reduction of data moved, backup times and overhead on shared resources. As more customers deploy virtual machines using VMware products, Avamar's de-duplication capabilities enable customers to save time and money while helping their data to be protected."
Brad O'Neill, Analyst with the Taneja Group, said, "As VMware continues to permeate through organizations of all sizes, it creates a greater need for enhanced protection of data residing in virtual servers. EMC Avamar's new support for VMware Consolidated Backup puts EMC in a unique position that allows customers to drastically reduce the amount of data backed up in VMware environments. With this new support, customers can optimally drive their VMware deployments while taking their data protection environments to the next level."
Increased Support for EMC Hardware and Software, Operating Systems and Applications
Avamar also now provides backup support for EMC Celerra NAS systems. File system environments, by their nature, typically have multiple copies of identical files. As a result, this increasing amount of duplicate data places pressure on backup windows. Customers can now use Avamar de-duplication capabilities with Celerra systems, via NDMP backups, to address this challenge and accelerate the full backup of their file systems. In addition, EMC Backup Advisor software has added Avamar as a supported backup application providing advanced monitoring, analysis and troubleshooting capabilities for Avamar environments. These new capabilities provide visibility to Avamar backup job completion, as well as diagnostics to provide better analysis of failed backup jobs. Finally, Avamar has added new operating system and application support for HP-UX and Mac OS platforms as well as Oracle and IBM DB2 databases.
Mark Sorenson, EMC's Senior Vice President of Information Management Software, said, "Reducing the amount of backup data transferred and stored on secondary media helps alter the fundamental economics of disk versus tape as backup media, allowing companies to cost-effectively utilize disk at a cost that is equal to, or less than, tape. Our next generation backup solutions - like EMC Avamar solutions - are enabling customers to take advantage of that paradigm shift and enable disk to become the de facto medium for backup and recovery. With new game-changing technologies like de-duplicated backups for virtualized environments, EMC continues to raise the bar, helping customers store, protect, optimize and leverage their information infrastructure."
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
EMC CLARiiON CX now shipping with Solid-State Drives (SSD) - June 20, 2008
Orlando Florida -- EMC Corp. will add a new Clariion midrange storage array with solid-state drives (SSD) over the next few months, SearchStorage.com has learned. EMC began offering SSD in its enterprise Symmetrix systems earlier this year, and industry sources say that EMC will extend its support of SSD technology with the Clariion CX4-80, which is expected to be generally available in August. Brian McCarthy President and EMC Partner stated "tier 0 is long over do, and welcomes moving his client based to this new technology".
One source familiar with the SSD-supported Clariion arrays said the latest versions of Symmetrix and Clariion arrays share hardware components, including disk trays and outer skins. This makes it relatively simple for EMC to slot SSDs into the Clariion now that it's been done for Symmetrix.
EMC would neither confirm nor deny the rumors about the Clariion CX4-80, issuing a statement saying, "At EMC World, we spoke about the many benefits of flash technology, EMC's investment in testing and qualification, and that we would incorporate it into our product portfolio where it made the most sense. Beyond that, we are not going to be able to provide any specifics as to announcements, products or time frames."
Since EMC pledged in January to support SSDs in Symmetrix, other vendors, including Xiotech, FalconStor, Nimbus Data Systems, Hitachi Data Systems, NetApp and Sun, have also said they would support SSDs in enterprise storage arrays. That leaves Hewlett-Packard and IBM as the two major players who have yet to divulge their plans regarding SSDs in enterprise storage arrays. HP and IBM are still playing catch up on so many fronts, done look for SSD any time soon, stated McCarthy.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/
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
