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Primary Storage Data Compression is now a Reality - July 26, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Storewiz, Inc. is the only provider of online data compression solutions that dramatically boost storage space on network storage environments. Storewiz appliances are installed between the organization’s storage arrays and their network. Designed to work with any storage array it is connected to, the Storewiz appliance typically provides organizations with 2-5X additional capacity with associated savings in capital, operational, maintenance and management resources. Storewiz solutions have been successfully tested for interoperability with leading storage vendors such as EMC and NetApp.
Storewiz Inc., the only provider of innovative online storage compression solutions, introduces its STN-6000™ product line – a set of third-generation data compression appliances built around a new multi-core compression architecture that features state-of-the-art processors, more efficient algorithms, an improved compression ratio, a robust architecture for all future developments and other enhancements that enable the most data-intensive enterprises to maximize their growing network infrastructure at a fraction of their current cost. Designed for enterprise implementations, the new appliances are designed to provide impressive compression rates without affecting the performance of applications connected to the network.
The STN-6000 line is launching with two products targeted at companies with a wide range of applications: • STN-6300 is ideally suited for departmental/remote office, distributed applications and archival/ compliance. The STN-6300 delivers the availability, reliability and efficiency organizations require while reducing the time and equipment costs typically associated with data management. • STN-6500 is ideally suited to handle the demanding performance and scalability requirements of enterprise business and technical applications. By eliminating the need for network reconfiguration, the STN-6500 provides superior flexibility to quickly respond to evolving business needs.
“Without question, Storewiz is leading the way for this critical new market of primary storage capacity optimization,” said Brad O'Neill, Senior Analyst with Taneja Group. “Storewiz is demonstrating to enterprise IT that optimizing application data in real-time with advanced compression software is a very high-value function. Not only can it reduce primary storage costs and improve storage utilization, it also plays a key role in improving storage performance as well. Akin to how de-duplication approaches have optimized backup and archiving in the enterprise, primary storage optimization software will also soon become a defacto fixture in enterprise data centers. I believe Storewiz is in an excellent position to drive this new category's growth.”
Storewiz continues its lead in data compression technology by developing a new, patent-pending engine that leverages a powerful multi-core hardware platform that results in wire speed compression. This technology enables existing infrastructures to store on average three times more data than is available today with no performance degradation. Built upon the success of the company’s STN-5000™, the STN-6000 is a plug-and-play solution that easily adds on to storage systems while remaining completely transparent to users, applications, databases, storage and network environments.
According to Brian McCarthy, President of Sencilo solutions, “Our customers know about data growth firsthand, since they are challenged with the on-going expenses involved in adding primary storage systems and the related man hours in its management. It’s not difficult for them to quickly realize the benefits of a data compression appliance, and the ease in which it is installed and managed.”
STN-6000 features include: • An improved data compression ratio of on average 10 percent greater than previously offered with the STN-5000
• A robust architecture designed to support future storage-related developments and applications
• Management enhancements built into the system’s high-availability design that ensure continued access to data and help eliminate costly downtime
• An enhanced read cache algorithm that improves system response times by reducing the number of physical I/O requests that are read from storage
• Improved maintainability in order to allow monitoring and ease of maintenance
“No other vendor has even approached the sophisticated abilities of our first generation of data compression appliances and yet here we are launching our third,” said Gal Naor, Storewiz CEO. “Our unique approach to real-time compression through the offloading and centralization of data in a powerful and dedicated appliance such as our STN-6000, provides users with an unbeatable business solution that enables them to maximize current and future storage investments while safeguarding their business-critical information with no performance degradation.”
The Storewiz STN-6000 requires no workflow changes, no software agents, no drivers and no configuration changes. It supports both file- and block-level data compression for all tiers of storage and applications, including OLTP databases. By compressing data at rest, Storewiz lets organizations retain fast access to files and databases while saving capital, operation and maintenance costs – without altering vendor storage functionality. And with no resident file system, Storewiz appliances are interchangeable with no loss of data.
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
Magic Quadrant Leader -- Quantum DXi 7500 Now Shipping - July 21, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Quantum Corp. is rolling out it's third generation DXi7500 data deduplication system to give it a smaller entry point and to make it easier to manage in the wake of increased competition in the data deduplication market.
The DXi7500 is the flagship of Quantum's data deduplication family, and it finally hit the market in June – 11 months after Quantum announced it. Quantum today rolled out a management application called Quantum Vision and a DXi7500 configuration that starts at 9 TB of usable data. The DXi7500 previously started at 18 TB. The high-end remainsat 180 usable TB data (240 TB raw data).
The major feature of the DXi7500 enterprise disk backup platform is it gives customers a choice to dedupe data inline (while writing to disk) or post process (after writing to disk). Quantum refers to the methods as adaptive (inline) and deferred (post process). Its smaller data deduplication appliances, the DXi3500 and DXi5500, only perform post-process deduplication and competing deduplication products support one or the other deduplication method. "No other vendor offers this technology and was the key reason we stopped marketing the Data Domain DDX series, along with their low performance and lack of expandation," says Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions. Up until late last year Sencilo was one of Data Domain's largest resellers, says McCarthy.
Quantum recommends adaptive deduplication to back up small offices, virtual servers and mailboxes, and deferred deduplication to back up applications with large amounts of new data or large OLAP databases.
Today's upgrades come as Quantum tries to carve a place for itself in a crowded data deduplication market. When Quantum rolled out the DXi3500 and DXi5500 in early 2007, Data Domain was the only major dedupe target competition. Now, EMC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, FalconStor, Sun, Hitachi Data Systems, Sepaton, Copan, Exagrid, Overland and NEC all have data deduplication backup products through their own IP or partnerships. NetApp offers dedupe as part of its operating system for primary data, and industry sources say it is close to bringing out deduplication for its virtual tape library (VTL) products.
Quantum even competes with its own data dedupe code because EMC licenses it to run on EMC disk libraries.
"There's more competition and the stakes are higher now," said analyst Brian Garrett, Enterprise Strategy Group. "Quantum's been at it for a while, and they've learned a lot of lessons."
Quantum hasn't had much success with its data deduplication products yet, and the management interface received complaints from customers. But the Vision console includes GUIs showing performance and capacity trends, historic and current dedupe ratios, replication status, and monitoring and usage reports for arrays and tape libraries, network switches and backup applications. Along with the DXi devices, Vision shows information on Quantum's tape and nondedupe disk systems on the same console.
"We haven't had a single tool that lets you see multiple systems," said Steven Whitner, Quantum's product marketing manager for disk systems.
Vision is the more interesting of today's releases, Garrett said. "Their trending stuff is really rich. Just showing dedupe rates over time is a key value. That's conspicuously absent from dedupe products," he said. "They do a good job of reporting on how it's going right now, but what about last week at this time? How much am I saving over time?"
As for the smaller DXi7500, Whitner pointed out the DXi5500 maxes out at 11 TB of usable data and there was a gap between that and the previous smallest DXi7500. "This is a way of keeping the whole product line smoothly scalable," he said.
Pricing for the 9 TB DXi7500 begins at $95,000 for NAS and data deduplication licenses, and Quantum Vision starts at $7,500 for a two-system license. This is half the price of a similiar Data Domain DD595/
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-data-deduplication.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in 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
Cost Cutting Tips and Tricks for DR Plans - July 18, 2008
Orlando Florida -- In these days of extremely tight budgets and ever-increasing energy and transportation costs, who would waste money? You have to look at your spending from various angles to see where you may have wasted dollars. For example, refusing to spend money on technologies that can reduce your disaster recovery (DR) deployment and testing costs actually wastes money. This is the first of the top DR budget wasters discussed in this tip.
Not virtualizing your data center: Virtualization can save you money in DR maintenance and testing. "I have talked to many customers who have leveraged virtualization to build DR solutions, even with applications that are not readily consolidated. In other words, they have implemented a 1:1 consolidation ratio just to gain the benefits of virtualization's mobility to simplify DR," says Brian McCarthy President and Enterprise class VMware Consultant in Lake Mary Florida.
Consolidated virtual infrastructures can save even more money. Let's look at a real life example from a CIO of a medium sized business I spoke with. Like many companies diving into virtualization, they had virtualized the bulk of their applications and services in order to gain the benefits of consolidation. The CIO had not thought that he would see any additional savings and was very pleasantly surprised to see a dramatic reduction in DR testing time and personnel.
Before they virtualized, their DR tests (performed twice a year) would take three to five days to complete with seven to 10 IT staff involved. After virtualizing, the testing time dropped to one to two days and used only two IT staff. How much money does this save? Assume that a fully burdened IT engineer costs $175,000 per year and works 260 days per year. Best case savings for this company (10 staff for five days twice a year down to two staff for one day twice a year) is $64,616 per year and that does not include opportunity costs -- the work that was not being done by the extra IT staff that was busy performing the DR testing tasks. To be fair, let's look at the worst case savings (seven staff for three days twice a year down to two staff for two days twice a year) that would still be a savings of $22,884 per year. Bottom line: Leverage virtualization to avoid wasting money on DR testing.
Not maintaining your DR plan: You have spent considerable time and money on your business continuity plan. You have the plan implemented, or so you think. You have performed an initial test or two. But business needs and tightening budgets drive you down the path of justifying putting off the next DR test until the current critical project is completed. By the time that project is mostly completed, the next critical project is looming over your head. Again, you delay your DR testing to focus on meeting the demands of the business. This vicious cycle continues and continues. Does this sound familiar?
I've seen this too many times, even in large mature IT organizations. Putting off your plan maintenance and testing means that you spent your initial DR investment in vain. You wasted all that money -- thousands to millions of dollars. Without ongoing testing and maintenance, history has proven time and time again that recovery is bound to fail, or at least take longer than expected as the staff wades through hundreds of small issues that would have been resolved through regular plan testing and maintenance. Bottom line: Maintaining and testing your plan is a critical project; without maintenance, any money spent on DR previously is mostly wasted.
Lack of CEO oversight and board involvement: I've heard too many stories where business continuity and DR is driven from the CIO and not the CEO. All of the companies that have experienced a disaster where the DR plan was driven by the CIO have had one thing in common: The IT department is up and running, but the rest of the business is broken and in a disaster state.
DR and business continuity are the safety nets for the health of the whole company, not just the IT department. DR planning, testing, and maintenance should be driven by the CEO and board of directors as a top priority. It represents protecting all corporate assets. When DR is not being driven by the CEO, all the money and time spent on DR by the CIO is in vain. It is wasted as the overall corporation remains in a non-functional state in the event of a disaster.
On the bright side, I talked to a CIO who had a CEO that drove DR across their company (a large distributor with five warehouses and a central data center). This CIO wasn't that excited about DR personally, but kept the plan going as a result of the CEO's continued vigilance. When Internet communications were cut to the central data center by an impatient back-hoe operator, the plan operated within parameters so that orders did get out by their deadlines. Some minor issues with the plan were discovered and repaired, and in the post mortem, it was determined that the plan worked. It had included the whole company, and it was the business units and employees that kept the business running while the data center was off-line. Bottom line: DR and business continuity are only effective if driven by the CEO and board of directors across the whole company. "Any money spent on DR for IT alone without DR for the rest of the company is wasted, says McCarthy.
Over protecting your environment: I have not seen this sin committed as often as the preceding mistakes, but I have seen it nonetheless. Executives tend to believe every service and component is critical and needs protecting at top levels -- especially at companies new to building business continuity plans. Handing them the bill for what they are asking usually brings a level of sanity back to the business unit head.
I have seen companies implement a recovery data center with site-to-site replication and hot, ready-to-go servers. They place all their services and applications into the hot site system regardless of system criticality. As a result, they protect systems at high costs that require much less aggressive protection at much lower costs (e.g., simple weekly tape backup stored off-site).
A detailed business analysis of each system can avoid such mistakes. Let's look at a slightly different example that can illustrate this point. I talked to the CIO of a large enterprise and he shared an interesting story. The sales division came to him asking for a customer account licensing tracking system for a very special class of customer. The company offered various levels of product licensing with the bulk of their millions of customers buying their standard product. The standard product license was already automated in an account tracking database system. This special class of customer license had some specific needs that could not be met by the general system.
The CIO put out RFPs and received proposals to retro-fit or add a completely new system with redundancy and protection for $2 to $3 million dollars. Then he asked the sales division how many customers are in this special case, and learned that it was currently about 400 customers. He then asked how fast that special licensing customer group was growing and what they expected it would be in three years. The answer, maybe ten percent in three years.
Armed with that business information, the CIO proceeded to purchase two locking steel file cabinets and hire two administrative assistants to manually track these customers. He arranged with the corporate records office to have copies of each customer record securely shipped to the corporate off-site archives for data protection and business continuity. The savings were between $1.5 and $2.5 million dollars. Bottom line: Look at the business aspects of what you are doing. Spending money on aggressive DR for all business processes may be wasting money.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/continuity-disaster.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
What Cisco isn't telling us about VoIP and data leakage - July 17, 2008
Orlando Florida -- Large software and infrastructure vendors have been pushing companies toward unified communications (UC), but many firms are viewing UC as another avenue for data leakage, according to a recent survey conducted by Black Diamond, Wash.-based Osterman Research Inc.
"Some firms are shopping for data leakage prevention tools as part of their unified communications projects. Many fear that sensitive company data could be difficult to control when email, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and instant messages meld with collaboration systems, multimedia services and transactional systems", says Brian McCarthy President and well-known Security Consultant for Sencilo solutions Lake Mary Florida.
Nearly 50% of respondents are concerned about information leak prevention in their current or planned unified communications implementations, and 23% of those view leak prevention as a top priority, according to an online survey of 109 mid-to-large IT organizations in North America, conducted last month by Osterman Research.
"The major vendors are really pushing that UC message, and I think companies are starting to respond and understand that UC is a good thing, but it creates even more opportunities for data leaks," said Michael Osterman, president and principal analyst at Osterman Research.
The survey was commissioned by Belmont, Calif.-based messaging security vendor FaceTime Communications Inc.
IT pros fear a number of threats posed by melding communications onto one common data network. An attacker can intercept VoIP, instant messaging (IM) and other traffic, or worse, they can conduct a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack by using a VoIP protocol to flood systems with session requests. Others fear an increase in vishing, the VoIP-enabled form of phishing.
But the risk of those forms of attack is minimal, Osterman said. Insider threats from unintentional or accidental leaks pose a greater threat, he said, and the survey suggests that IT organizations are heeding that message. Forty-eight percent of respondents view unintentional or accidental leaks of information by employees as a serious concern, as compared with 31% who named data loss due to malicious software as a serious concern.
Osterman said he's still seeing companies willing to accept the risks involved with UC rather than being proactive by implementing technologies or sound security policies. For example, a consultant couldn't convince a company to implement an email archiving system. The firm decided to pay fines instead.
Companies need to begin with the basics and develop a multi-layer defense strategy, Osterman said. Companies can implement portions of a data leakage prevention system by focusing on the data governing rules outlined by their industry. For example, a merchant can implement a system that monitors all outbound email and IM for 16-digit character strings.
"We're starting to find organizations that are at least thinking about the issues, but there are a lot of companies that don't realize the negative ramifications of what they're doing," he said.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/security-compliance-management.php
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in network storage and information security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, RSA, 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, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland, Cape Canaveral, Lake Mary
Other products include Barracuda Networks Security RSA Encryption Cisco Decru Neoscale EMC NetApp Compliance vs. Gartner Magic Quadrant SSL SonicWall Secure Computing Firewall VPN Endpoint DLP Tumbleweed Ironmail Ironport Secure Computing compare data leakage enVision Data Loss Prevention Encryption and Key Management CA Symantec Juniper
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
FAQs on Data De-dupe Technologies - June 29, 2008
Orlando Florida -- In the storage business, data deduplication is all the rage. Our customers are clamoring to cash in on the savings, but most don't yet understand how to properly apply the technology to their environment. Sencilo Solutions can help customers sort through the three basic approaches and extract real value from data deduplication quickly will earn the trust of clients and gain lasting business.
As you know, deduplication offers a number of improvements over traditional storage for backups. But with those benefits comes a confusing set of questions from customers, the key question being: How do we choose the best dedupe technology? In answering that question, it's important not to jump ahead to focus on specific products -- by first choosing product type, whether it be host-based, VTL-based or NAS-based, Sencilo Solutions can simplify the decision process our customers. Here's how they break down.
Host-based data deduplication
Host-based deduplication requires the backup client to do a lot of the dedupe work. In many cases, that's not a problem, especially when the client is not CPU-bound. Host-based dedupe really helps when backup bandwidth is constrained by small wide area network (WAN) pipes or consolidated virtual servers.
Host-based data deduplication solutions usually require us to replace traditional backup software with the dedupe backup software, so before we recommend such a change, make sure that the benefits are significant enough.
Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions of Lake Mary Florida a reseller that specializes in Backup and Archive products and services. "Remote office backups to the corporate site will benefit from Avamar's host-based deduplication because it eliminates most or all of the backup hardware located at the remote site and optimizes the network bandwidth required to centralize backups to corporate data centers", says McCarthy. VMware backups benefit from host-based deduplication by limiting the network bandwidth required to back up multiple guest machines concurrently.
Some of the examples of host-based data deduplication technology include EMC Avamar and Symantec NetBackup PureDisk. See - http://www.sencilo.com/storage-data-deduplication.php
Virtual tape library (VTL) data deduplication
Deduped virtual tape libraries (VTLs) work well when the backups are localized to the data center and/or bandwidth between the client and backup storage is not an issue. Naturally, many customers will want to take advantage of deduplication in their existing or planned virtual tape infrastructure. VTLs are already very common in midsized and large enterprises and consume a significant part of many companies' overall storage budget. Deduping at the VTL should be simple for customers because almost all backup software platforms support VTLs. In addition, deduped VTLs are a good fit for disaster recovery replication and when the customer wants to replace tape for primary backups. Given the increased efficiency and deduped VTL-to-VTL replication, there may finally be an opportunity to show real ROI for backup to disk instead of tape.
Examples of VTL dedupe technology include EMC DL3D, Sepaton S2100 and Quantum DXi Series.
Primary network-attached storage (NAS) data deduplication
VTLs introduce a lot of the same challenges that physical tape presents, such as tape contention, poor cartridge utilization and intolerance to high storage area network (SAN) latencies. In some cases, customers want the benefits of target hardware-based deduplication without the complexity and limitations of tape. In these cases, deduped NAS file systems may be the perfect remedy. Deduped NAS storage has some impressive cost advantages because it doesn't require SAN connections or VTL licensing in the backup software. In some cases, the deduped NAS storage can be used for more than just backups, such as highly duplicate archive data where throughput is less important than space savings.
Examples of NAS data deduplication technology include NetApp NearStore with Advanced Single Instance Store (ASIS), Data Domain's DD Series, EMC's DL1500 and Quantum DXi-series appliances.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-data-deduplication.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage and security solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral
Offerings Projects: Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ
University of Utah lost 2.2 million Health Care and Social Security Records - June 26, 2008
Courier violated protocol, taking data home instead of directly to off-site storage facility
Orlando Florida -- University of Utah officials this week acknowledged that a metal box of backup tapes containing billing records of some 2.2 million patients was stolen early this month from the car of a courier who left it in a parked car overnight outside his home.
The missing tapes were taken on June 2 from the car of an employee of Perpetual Storage Inc., an independent storage company hired by the university to transport its computer tapes to off-site facilities, said school officials. The tapes contained names, demographic information and Social Security numbers of patients of the University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics.
The health care system has suspended all backup tape deliveries to Perpetual Storage pending a full review of the company's protocols and procedures, said a university spokeswoman.
The spokeswoman confirmed that Perpetual Storage fired the individual involved with the data breach for violating company data security transportation protocols. The driver had been employed by Perpetual Storage for 18 years, she said.
The spokeswoman said the driver informed his employer immediately upon discovering that the tapes were lost. Perpetual Storage informed the University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics officials within 24 hours of the breach, she added.
Perpetual Storage did not immediately return calls by Computerworld seeking comment.
The university spokeswoman declined to say whether any of the missing data storage tapes were encrypted.
Lorris Betz, senior vice president for health sciences and CEO of University of Utah Health & Clinics, said in a posted alert that it's unlikely that any information on the backup tapes will be exposed to thieves. "Although it is unlikely that information on the tapes will be compromised, we are nevertheless taking aggressive steps to protect our patients' confidentiality," Betz said in the post. "Not true" says Brian McCarthy President of Sencilo Solutions and well known speak of backup and security, "if their tapes do not contain encryption any one with a tape drive can read the files."
The university plans to mail notification letters to all patients whose data was held on the stolen tapes and offer them free credit-monitoring services. The missing tapes did not hold any credit card information, noted school officials.
The university is offering a reward of $1,000 for the return of the stolen tapes with "no questions asked." The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department, the FBI and U.S. Postal Service are investigating the theft.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/security-compliance-management.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland, Cape Canaveral, Lake Mary
Other products include Barracuda Networks Security RSA Encryption Cisco Decru Neoscale EMC NetApp Compliance vs. Gartner Magic Quadrant SSL SonicWall Secure Computing Firewall VPN Endpoint DLP Tumbleweed Ironmail Ironport Secure Computing compare data leakage enVision Data Loss Prevention Encryption and Key Management CA Symantec Juniper
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
Where will it end? PCI compliance now extends to POS car washes, quick lubes - June 17, 2008
When Innive Systems, Inc., began integrating credit card clearing into its point-of-sale systems for car washes by connecting to a credit card clearinghouse over the Internet, executives at the company knew they had to do something to protect the machines.
At first, they advised their customers to install antivirus software. But over time, it became clear the customers weren't heeding their advice: Support calls soared as machines became infected with viruses and other malware. The outbreaks would prevent the vendor's POS applications, which are integrated with the car wash tunnel operations, from running and disrupt business. Support technicians spent hours cleaning up customers' systems.
"It really led us to look at the fact that they weren't being proactive in protecting themselves so we had to look for a solution," said Joe Jennings, network administrator at Daytona Beach Florida-based Innive Systems.
The company began looking for software that would work with its application and provide affordable protection for its customers. Jennings and his team put seven antivirus products to the test on a POS system. They threw viruses and spyware at each, and looked at how fast they allowed the Innive Systems application to run.
"We went through the entire gambit with each one," Jennings said.
In the POS world, anything that slows down the ability to produce a receipt is unacceptable, he explained. "You don't want customers standing there waiting for anything." In that respect, Barracuda Antivirus, stood out from the others. With it, a receipt popped out in less than half a second. CA's antivirus caused the longest lag at 20 seconds, Jennings said.
Jennings and his team also liked Barracuda proactive capabilities in blocking malware, its integrated anti-spyware protection, Eset's automatic updates, and low price. The initial plan was to resell the antivirus protection to customers, but with the PCI Data Security Standard becoming a concern, the company's president decided that it needed to be included with every POS system, Jennings said.
By including the antivirus protection with its systems, Innive Systems is helping its customers at nearly 3,000 car wash and quick lube locations comply with the PCI standard, Jennings said. Barracuda, which is installed with the POS server in active scanning mode for real-time protection, prevents viruses, Trojans or other malware from reading or extracting any of the data flowing from the POS device and server to the credit card clearinghouse, he said. No credit card data is stored on the POS device or server, he added.
The need to secure POS systems was highlighted in the recent indictment of three men on charges of hacking into computer systems at 11 Dave & Buster's restaurants and stealing credit and debit card numbers. The trio allegedly gained unauthorized access to the POS servers at each restaurant and installed packet sniffers designed to capture credit card data.
Security expert Brian McCarthy of Sencilo Solutions in Longwood Florida have said "a common security problem at retail locations are POS systems that are managed by third parties via unsecured remote access systems that often use blank or default passwords."
In addition to providing antivirus protection with its POS solutions, Innive Systems ships to each customer a router that's configured securely, without any standard open ports. And even before PCI compliance became an issue, the company realized it needed to replace its remote support solution for managing client machines with a more secure system, Jennings said. It chose the Bomgar Box, which he described as a secure, encrypted point-to-point system; no standard passwords are used and Jennings requires frequent password changes for employees.
In addition, Innovive Systems is working to get its software validated under the new Payment Application Data Security Standard. FL-DSS is based largely on Visa's Payment Application Best Practices (PABP) program.
Since the vendor starting shipping every system with Barracuda, calls to its support team about viruses and other problems dropped tremendously, Jennings said. The company also replaced its Symantec and Webroot Software antivirus products with antivirus on its corporate network.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/security-compliance-management.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland, Cape Canaveral
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