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Cost Cutting Tips for Small Business - Part II - September 23, 2009
Orlando Florida == Midsize companies should look at creating cost-cutting teams, pay more attention to reducing maintenance support costs and reduce their networking spending, said Terrence Cosgrove, senior research analyst at Gartner, during a breakout session titled "System Management on an IT Budget" at Everything Channel's Midsize Enterprise Summit in Miami.
Reducing enterprise costs is the second most important business expectation for midsize companies this year, according to Gartner's 2009 survey of 1,500 midsize CIOs.
In a sign of how the economy has changed CIOs' priorities, reducing enterprise costs finished as only the ninth most important expectation in last year's survey, according to Gartner.
Meanwhile, reducing the cost of IT was the third most important CIO strategy in 2009 and it didn't even finish in the top 10 last year.
"A CIO thinks IT has to do everything better, faster, cheaper and become more aligned with the business. The concept of doing more with less has been the anthem of IT operations for the last 10 to 15 years. What's unique now is that fiscal constraints are so much greater and pressure from business is so much stronger. It puts you in the position that IT has to change its way of thinking with respect to infrastructure and operations," said Cosgrove, who laid out tips to help IT organizations lower their costs.
The most important business expectation for midsize companies was improving business processes, but was not a focus of Cosgrove's talk.
Cosgrove detailed several ways that midsize companies can contain costs. To start, organizations should create cost-cutting teams that include representation from all major platforms -- PCs, servers, networking, storage, as well as a financially qualified professional, Cosgrove said.
"A finance person will help because sometimes if you reduce costs in one area, you can increase costs somewhere else. We also recommend someone with a legal background, especially for renegotiated contracts," Cosgrove said.
Reducing hardware maintenance costs can save money through a number of means, Cosgrove said. Gartner has found that the cost of hardware maintenance has increased 5.5 percent over the last year, but the providers' ability to meet service-level commitments has decreased 4.5 percent.
"A lot of clients find support cheaper on a time and materials basis than a subscription," Cosgrove said. He cited one example of a midsize company that saved $10,000 per year by discontinuing maintenance on four-year-old switches, scanners and some printers. The company moved from a 24x7 support contract to a 9-to-5 maintenance window, he added.
Next: Networking Ripe With Savings Opportunities Networking, which represents 10 to 30 percent of IT spending, is ripe with cost-cutting opportunities, Cosgrove said.
"Moving from frame relay to an IP-based backbone system like VPN will save a lot of money. One midmarket company cut their WAN [costs] by 30 percent by moving to broadband VPN," he said. "Also, make networking contracts more competitive. One of our clients, a health-care company, cut their phone costs from $45,000 per month to $23,000 per month by opening their renewal to multiple telecom carriers. Even if you have no intention of moving away from your provider, we recommend opening it up to make it more competitive," he said.
Another cost-cutting measure currently employed by many midsize companies is virtualization. Still, Cosgrove points out, most organizations can do more in that area. At last year's MES shows, Gartner ran a survey that found that 64 percent of servers in attendees' IT environments were still physical. There are three issues critical to virtualization success, he said: controlling sprawl (even "VM-sprawl" Cosgrove said), improved ISV licensing and training.
"There's a wide variance around what ISVs will support in a virtual environment. Eventually, ISVs will figure out a way to monetize it to run in a virtual environment, but it's very inconsistent today," Cosgrove said.
CIOs also should understand the total cost of IT support, which can be eye opening, Cosgrove said. For example, it costs between $12 and $20 for a Level 1 call center contact, but moving to a self-service model can reduce that amount to $2 to $10, he said.
"Most organizations are at 65 percent first-contact resolution. We think 75 percent to 80 percent is good. A one percent increase in first-contact resolution represents a 0.64 percent increase in customer satisfaction," Cosgrove said.
Finally, Cosgrove also advised that midsize companies hold off on moving to Office 2007 because Office 14 will be available in the middle of next year. "Office 2003 will still be supported for the next five years. You're in a really good position to see what Office 14 is like," he said. The cost to migrate from Office 2003 to 2007 is between $900 and $1,600 per user, he added.
Most midsize companies also won't see true cost savings by moving to OpenOffice.org or Google Docs because too many users will still need Microsoft Office, he said. "We don't recommend moving to OpenOffice.org unless you're absolutely sure your works don't need Microsoft Office," he said.
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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
The Pandemic is here and this is your Business Continuity Planning Guide for the Swine Flu (H1N1) - September 17, 2009
Concerned about the coming flu season and the impact H1N1 will have on the workforce? Here's a fear-free roundup of articles, columns and podcasts to help you keep improving your preparedness plan.
With flu season fast approaching in the Western Hemisphere, medical and government officials are bracing for what is expected to be a nasty wave of sickness, panic and workflow disruptions throughout the public and private sector. The reason for this year's extra sense of urgency is H1N1, commonly known as Swine Flu.
The World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic strain, and though cases have mostly been mild, concern abounds that a nastier strain of virus will emerge this fall and winter, leading to the scenarios described above. Among those who are deep in planning for what may come is Richard Thomas, director of education at InfraGard and a member of the Austin, Texas Community Emergency Response Team.
"We have had a number of briefings from the Texas Department of State Health Services on the topic and the main preventative measure is to stay healthy," he said. To keep people healthy, he said, the key is to plaster every office and school building with guidelines written and spoken on the basics: Getting plenty of sleep to keep the immune system sturdy, getting the annual flu vaccine and staying home if sick so as not to infect others.
"It is a difficult task to manage public fear," he added. "The general feeling I get from our health officials is that they do not consider this a major threat under general conditions. However, it is a balancing act between not showing enough concern that people become lax about preventative measures, and showing too much concern, which can cause hysteria. I think they have it well in hand."
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 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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in a Tornado, Lightning or Hurricane Zone - September 17, 2009
Weather creates risks that differ in key ways from those in a hurricane area. Cancer Treatment Centers of America showcases a study BC/DR plan for dealing with tornadoes
Orlando Florida -- Business continuity planners in tornado alley have much in common with those in hurricane areas -- but also key differences. Tornadoes have smaller funnels, but can appear in groups, may feature dramatically higher winds, and can strike with far less warning than a major hurricane typically provides. Good BC/DR planning must take those differences into account in everything from employee and facility safety to network uptime.
Cancer Treatment Centers of America literally has lives on the line if something goes wrong with their business continuity plans. That's why Chad Eckes, chief information officer of the Schaumburg, Illinois-headquartered organization, believes there is no room for complacency. Keeping things running smoothly 100 percent of the time is always the goal.
"I think you will find most CIOs will say 100 percent up time is impossible," he said "But why would you ever target anything less than 100 percent? We have always operated well over five-nines in terms of up time. But if I were satisfied, those potential moments of down time could be the moments a patient is being impacted."
The mission of Cancer Treatment Centers of America, according to Eckes, is to offer healing and hope to complex cancer patients. It's a goal that everyone with the organization is mindful of, regardless of their job, he said.
"Everyone at CTCA draws a line everyday in how their job touches the patient."
CTCA has hospitals in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. But CTCA's primary operations in Schaumburg are in tornado country, which means keeping an eye on the weather and having a business continuity plan that is resilient in the event of a damaging storm, particularly in the spring, when tornadoes are most common in this part of the U.S. The Midwest and the Central Plains of North America see more tornadoes each year than any other part of the world.
"We had a key decision to make a few years ago about whether we run centralized data centers or decentralized. Going back to that core principal of the mother standard, we made the decision by bringing it back to patients and its impact on patients."
Eckes and CTCA decided centralization was the best option so the same information was available to all employees, regardless of the facility they are working in. From a BC/DR standpoint, Eckes said a centralized data center with a backup facility was the better way to go in order to avoid any down time in the event of an emergency that takes one of the data centers offline for any period of time.
"We have migrated to all digital. There is no paper backup. We have our bedside monitors directly connected into our electronic health records. Our phone is all VOIP. Paging is integrated into the phone system. If any of these core systems go down, it could be a patient's life. You can't call a code blue if your phone system is down. It's that critical that everyone takes this that seriously."
According to a survey conducted earlier this year by AT&T, the most common scenario for rolling out a BC/DR plan was extreme weather (Read more about the results in Survey: BC/DR Plans Factor in Mobile, Social Networking). About 25 percent of companies said weather forced their plan to be put in action. More than half of companies in Houston and Miami/Orlando/Tampa, regions that have been hit hard with hurricanes in recent years, were likely to have invoked their business continuity plan.
But unlike hurricanes, which are a type of storm system that often originate over tropical waters and come with much advance warning, tornadoes are isolated storms that form with less warning for weather officials. They form in moist, warm air in advance of a cold front and are often seen in their hallmark funnel-cloud shape; a violent, rotating column of air which is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cloud. Tornadoes can stretch more than a mile across and stay on a destructive ground path for many miles, wiping out structures and picking up objects and debris along the way.
With tornado patterns in mind, CTCA built their two data centers in greater Chicagoland so that they sit 59 miles apart and in a pattern in which the likelihood of tornado hitting both of them is nearly impossible, said Eckes. The locations were chosen based on information CTCA got from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about weather patterns. The decision was based on historical events and what the likelihood would be of natural disaster hitting both facilities. Eckes said CTCA made sure the facilities, which have identical data, were sitting in a north-south arrangement and more than 30 miles apart to ensure one facility would always be operating. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tornadoes typically move from southwest to northeast.
"The first main design from a BCP standpoint was to have complete redundancy in our data. Anytime there is any production data written to the primary it is immediately mirrored over to our DR data center," said Eckes. "Literally, we are up to date in our second center within 15 seconds. That is, with a complete copy of all clinical systems."
The CTCA data has five layers of redundancy, from mirroring of data with an EMC SAN, to disk backups, to snap shots of patient data that are taken every four hours and stored on local servers within each hospital, says Brian Mccarthy CEO of Sencilo Solutions, in Lake Mary Florida.
"If our redundancy fails in terms of our network back to our two data centers, we need to have that data in the hands of our clinicians," said Eckes. "So they can go to this centralized server in their hospital, print out the pdf or copy it to a PC and still have all the information they need, like allergies, medications, treatment clinical pathway. Everything is there for them to care for their patients."
Structurally, considerations were also made due to the possibility of tornadoes hitting the data centers. While hurricanes can produce high winds that cause damage, preparations in hurricane zones often consider flooding as the most damaging potential factor. However, a tornado does most of its damage with extremely high winds; tornadoes can generate violent wind speeds in excess of 250 miles per hour. (For comparison, a category 5 hurricane may hit land with sustained winds of 155 miles per hour; Hurricane Camille at 190 mph was one of the most intense in history.)
Tornados are measured by the Fujita scale; a system which assigns levels of destructive power based on post-storm assessments. This scale runs from an F-0 storm, which causes little to no measurable damage, all the way to an F-5 which can completely eliminate all structures in its path. While most tornadoes rank lower than F-3, according to FEMA, they can still cause damage to a facility, particularly on windows and roofs.
"One of the important things for us was ensuring there were no exterior windows facing into the data center," said Eckes.
But Eckes said structural modifications weren't enough to give him peace of mind, so CTCA built their recovery center in an old bank vault with the specific risk of a tornado in mind. The vault is in a brick building with a data center that is surrounded by a perimeter of 18 inches of poured concrete that is reinforced with rebar.
"The likelihood of a tornado being able to hit, even at F4 level, is near impossible," said Eckes. "This is about as much protection as we are going to get without having an underground bunker."
According to FEMA, the best defense for personnel that may be in the immediate destructive path of a tornado is protection in a basement, cellar or other underground storm shelter. If there is none, staff should be advised to go to the lowest floor and into a small center room such as a bathroom or closet, under a stairwell, or in an interior hallway with no windows.
Geoff Craighead, vice president of High-Rise and Real Estate Services at Securitas Security Services USA and author of "High-Rise Security and Fire Life Safety," advises clients he works with in tornado zones to consider all physical elements of a building when created a business continuity plan.
"Creating a business continuity and disaster recovery plan requires a comprehensive evaluation of all physical factors that during a crisis may impact key business processes," he said.
Tornado warnings, when they are possible, are often broadcast on both radio and television, which of course can be monitored in the average security or network operations center. Craighead said if an organization is warned there is possibility of a tornado in the near future, preparations could include securing or moving outdoor objects such as trash containers, planters, signs, furniture, and vehicles that may blow away or cause damage to people or property. Craighead also recommends pruning tree branches that may cause damage to the building if time permits. Occupants should clear all objects from desks and working areas and all exposed paperwork should be stored in closed cabinets and other containers, he said. Valuable equipment and documents should be moved from outer offices to interior rooms.
"Building management, engineering or security staff, or floor wardens may conduct walkthroughs of the building to ensure that appropriate precautions are being undertaken," said Craighead.
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 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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
Top 10 Facts about Data Archiving - September 17, 2009
There are many ideas about what a consolidated or unified data archive should look like, and preconceptions can clash when you're considering creating such a solution. However, there are three key elements to any data archiving system:
Archiving software, from companies like Autonomy Cherub Networks, EMC Corp., CA and Point Software., manages the location, movement and disposition of data.
Storage hardware, from companies such as MDI, HDS, EMC, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co., and Nexsan, receives the data to be preserved and specialized platforms handle encryption, protection, retrieval and destruction of data.
Management software, from vendors like Abrevity Inc., Attenex Corp., Autonomy Corp., Clearwell Systems Inc., i365 (a Seagate Company) and Kazeon Systems Inc., provides services like search, classification and e-discovery capability.
But most applications don't fall into these neat classifications. As they develop their products and the market matures, vendors continually add features like e-discovery support, search and data movement, blurring the lines among storage, archiving and management. The variety of elements and overlapping features add complexity to the once-simple world of archiving.
Navigating the archiving market starts with an evaluation of your company's objectives for its archive. If the objective is to serve business demands like in-house e-discovery or retention to comply with regulations, it makes sense to let data management features drive product selection. But if IT needs a system to control data growth or enable lifecycle management, higher-level search and e-discovery features are less relevant. Regardless of the initial object, it's likely the archive will eventually serve both business and IT demands.
Not all archives will use all 3 archiving elements presented here. Some organizations send data to an archiving platform directly from a custom application, while others will use conventional storage systems rather than investing in a specialized device as their archive target.
Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo Solutions and nationally known speaker on data archiving, suggests a strategy is needed before expanding the archive environment. "Larger organizations, especially in regulated industries, are looking for federated search and management across data types, but smaller, less-regulated companies might be able to keep their data in silos," he said. "The key is the level of overarching management needed."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/c2c.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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
Top Reasons Why CIOs are asking for Data De-Dupe for Disk Based Backups - September 17, 2009
IT executives barely have time to keep track of the technology in their own environments; finding the hours in the day to stay abreast of all the new technology solutions in the marketplace is next to impossible. At some point, however, those in the data center corner office are bound to hear about solutions that can deliver near immediate payback and benefit other IT initiatives.
CIO Insight, a leading IT executive publication and accompanying Web site, recently published its Top CIO Priorities for 2009 research, which found that 38% of its 200+ respondents have “cutting costs” as the top business priority for 2009, up from 29% in 2008. Thirty-seven percent of respondents stated that “reducing ROI costs” is the top management priority in the upcoming year while 34% said “improving the ROI in IT investments” is their biggest management initiative.1 It is pretty clear that IT will spend very wisely in 2009—with investment paybacks being measured in months rather than years. An investment in data deduplication products is easy to rationalize. These products offer benefits to more than just the storage group because they cut data protection capital and operating expenses, facilitate consolidation of distributed backup operations, and slash server virtualization-related storage costs. Data deduplication offerings should, therefore, be on every CIO‟s project short list in 2009.
Data Growth Conundrum
Relentless Information Growth
ESG estimates that database data is growing at 25% per annum, with unstructured data increasing at two to three times that rate.2 This growth is fueled by a dependence on digital assets to conduct business and the need to support an increasingly mobile workforce. Collaboration, Web 2.0 applications, and use of messaging systems also contribute to information growth. Retention policies dictated by corporate and regulatory mandates exacerbate primary information growth as organizations are required to save data for longer periods of time (see Figure 1). Additionally, companies are saving historical information in an effort to improve business intelligence processes as decision support functions benefit from having access to more data.
Information Costs
IT executives must factor annual data growth rates into all areas of the budget. With more information being created, more primary storage capacity is required. The increase in capacity requirements may affect the primary storage systems‟ footprint in the data center and potentially require the company to secure or rent additional floor space. Further, storage operating costs such as the associated power and cooling requirements, additional networking infrastructure, redundancy components, and resource management software licensing will also grow when more storage is bought. An increase in primary storage capacity, in turn, triggers an increase in secondary storage capacity (disk and/or tape), media management servers, backup software licensing, backup reporting software licensing, and offsite media expenses. IT must staff appropriately to manage the entire infrastructure, which represents another expense that sometimes gets overlooked in the cost of information growth.
Because primary information growth also occurs outside of the data center, most notably at remote and branch
offices (ROBOs), organizations must also budget for infrastructure and staff to handle distributed data.
Sometimes, these expenses fall under the CIO‟s purview; in other instances, the remote office must fund IT
expenses out of its operating budget. With a global economy, employees who can work almost anywhere, and
outsourcing partnerships, ROBO IT costs are quickly impacting the corporate bottom line.
Data Protection’s Complicity -- The Multiplier Effect
Primary data growth is expensive, but the biggest contributors to the “cost of information” are all the copies made
for data protection purposes. When ESG asked nearly 400 IT decision makers what their greatest data
protection challenge was, the top response was “keeping pace with the capacity of data to protect.”3 IT
organizations have standard practices in place to protect all digital data records within the organization.
Typically, that means IT makes a copy of a volume, LUN, or file(s) at one or more points in time during the day
and saves the copy—locally for operational recovery and at an offsite location for disaster recovery (DR).
The problem is that data protection operations can be inefficient—backup applications make many backup
copies of the same (or slightly modified) file when only a small amount of the data within the file has actually
changed. Dozens of copies of the same data may be made and stored for lengthy periods of time—even when
the file is not changing or has lost its usefulness to the organization.
A file is created and backed up the same day. The file is continually updated and backed up with incremental backup strategies over the course of a week. The file is then e-mailed to a group of people and is backed up anew as part of the e-mail application backup. One or more of the recipients modifies the file slightly (changes the date on the cover page of a presentation, for example), which is backed up again in the next incremental backup. A copy of the file is made under a new name and is selected for backup again. In the meantime, every on-premises copy of a backup is replicated offsite, doubling the copy instances.
In this scenario, it is easy to see the level of inefficiency in the backup process. Highly redundant backup files clog LANs, WANs, and SANs and consume on- and off-premises storage capacity. Therefore, the data protection process and secondary storage systems contribute significantly to the capacity glut problem and present the most glaring opportunity for optimization.
Compounding the Problem
In some instances, organizations are adding to the data protection capacity problem by implementing new technologies to solve other IT-related problems. For example, many CIOs are driving data center consolidation and „green‟ projects by deploying server virtualization solutions. These solutions allow customers to run multiple servers on a single piece of hardware, which drives up utilization. However, ESG research found that more than one-third of organizations that have implemented server virtualization technology have seen an increase in the total amount of data to back up.4 Since virtual machine disk images contain the operating system, applications and data, there is a high degree of redundant information across virtual machines on a single physical server. The .vmdk files for ten virtual machines running Windows will contain ten very similar binaries, patches, and auxiliary applications.
A Difficult Balancing Act
As the capacity of data grows and regulatory mandates dictate longer retention periods, the amount of data under management may exceed the time allocated for backup. In an effort to reduce backup times, IT organizations are deploying disk in their backup processes at an increased rate. However, ESG found that the cost of storage systems is another top concern, creating a conundrum for IT organizations. How can IT provide adequate service level agreements for data protection, keep pace with data growth, and
keep spending in check?
Controlling Secondary Storage Costs
Data capacity growth is not going to abate. Data protection processes, such as backup and replication, magnify capacity growth. Therefore, it makes sense for organizations to employ tactics and technology to optimize this environment first—without sacrificing performance or introducing risk with recovery practices. Data deduplication has emerged as a compelling technology to control storage capacity and costs.
Do Not Store the Same Data Twice
Data deduplication identifies and eliminates redundant data. It can be performed at the file, block, or byte level. The opportunity to find and eliminate redundancy becomes greater with more granular examination. In secondary storage processes, such as backup, data is initially seeded on the secondary storage device and all subsequently written data is examined for redundancy. Replicate data is not stored twice; instead, a pointer to the stored duplicate data is written (which takes up significantly less space).
Regardless of the implementation method, deduplication delivers measurable results. One of the key measures
is the degree of capacity reduction, or “reduction ratio.” A “10x,” “10:1,” or 10 times reduction indicates that an
organization was able to reduce the size of a backup, 500 GB for example, to just 50 GB. As shown in Figure 2,
among data protection survey respondents, 48% of those using deduplication reported a 10-20x reduction and
18% reported reductions ranging from 21x to more than 100x. While data deduplication ratios will vary based on
the type of data, frequency of full backups, retention, inter-file and inter-application redundancy, local or global
deduplication, deduplication algorithm and more, ESG Lab‟s testing has found a 20:1 reduction ratio to be
broadly achievable.
What degree of capacity reduction has your organization experienced by using data de-duplication technology? (Percent of respondents, N = 58)
Deduplication ratios of 20:1 can produce significant capacity savings. In the example in Figure 3, weekly backup of 20 TB of data would normally balloon to 160 TB of backup capacity over an 8-week period (with a 6-week retention setting). Applying deduplication with a 20:1 deduplication ratio would deliver a savings of over 140 TB of capacity, requiring less than 18 TB of deduplicated storage capacity. The amount of data stored—either due to a greater frequency of full backups or longer retention times—tends to increase data deduplication ratios. This provides more incentive for organizations to leverage deduplication solutions wherever possible because the capacity and associated budget savings are likely to improve, while also improving the likelihood that data can be recovered from disk.
Data Reduction Addresses Top IT Priorities
The capacity savings seen in the example are just the tip of the iceberg. Improvements may be realized in many places in the secondary storage environment, addressing several of IT‟s top priorities or initiatives, including: Optimizing secondary storage environment and processes Supporting Green IT initiatives Cutting costs Better, Lower-Cost Data Protection Deduplication changes the economics of disk-based data protection. First, it makes the transition from tape- to disk-based protection more palatable as it drives the total cost of ownership for disk-based backup closer to that of a tape-based strategy. Capital cost savings associated with replacing a tape-based approach may encompass: tape infrastructure (hardware and software licenses), tape media acquisition, and disaster recovery costs. Second, deduplication optimizes disk-based backup environments as companies can replicate more data for disaster recovery more efficiently. With duplicate data being removed, companies do not have to buy as much disk capacity at the remote site and the replication process does not require such significant network bandwidth infrastructure. The reduction in backup data as a result of deduplication allows companies to consolidate more backups on fewer devices. Organizations can also choose to increase retention policies for data, which helps make compliance and electronic discovery recoveries go smoother since the information is more accessible (when compared to the data being saved on tape). Most importantly, organizations can reduce backup windows and improve restoration times by using disk versus tape. Recovery time objectives (RTOs) will improve because data can be recovered from disk. With more capacity available, IT may choose to increase the frequency of backups conducted during the day, improving recovery point objectives (RPOs). Organizations are quickly realizing the benefits of using disk-based backups for onsite data protection and are commencing tape replacement projects. ESG research indicates that nearly 50% of onsite backup data will be stored on disk in 2010, up from 26% in 2007 (see Figure 4). The impact on operational budgets may be seen in a number of ways. For tape replacement scenarios, operational overhead for tape handling, troubleshooting, and manual intervention in the backup process can be eliminated, as can power charges, tape hardware and software maintenance fees, and media storage costs. For companies using disk in their backup schemas already, deduplication can drive consolidation, which should reduce power costs as well as minimize data center floor space consumption.
EXPECTED INCREASE IN ON-SITE EXTERNAL DISK SECONDARY CAPACITY BY 2010
Approximately what percentage of your organization's total on-site backup
data is currently stored on each of the following storage media types? Please
also indicate what you expect these percentages to be in 2010? (N = 364)
Internal server storage External disk-based storage system Nearline tape (i.e., onsite, accessible tape)
Other Percent of backup data on each media type - 2007 Percent of backup data on each media type - 2010
Source: Source: ESG Research Report, Data Protection Market Trends, January 2008.
Backup Consolidation
Another benefit of capacity optimization will be realized with network bandwidth. Less data means less network
traffic. This benefit enables consolidation of backup data from distributed sites, such as ROBOs, to a central site.
Tape-based backup infrastructure, processes, and tape handling overhead can be eliminated at distributed sites
when deduplication is added to the local backup process. Remote site disk-based backup performed locally can
provide operational recovery while replicating the deduplicated backup store to a central data center can provide
disaster recovery.
Support for Multiple IT Initiatives
IT staffs continuously look for ways to improve resource utilization, drive efficiencies, and generate better service
levels. Many of the measurable benefits of deduplication assist with these objectives, with much of the positive
impact taking place in the storage environment. For example, lowering capacity requirements can impact
sustainability efforts. As previously discussed, capacity optimization can postpone additional capacity purchases
as well as reduce power consumption and required data center floor space. In the case of tape elimination, the
associated facility and environmental costs of the tape infrastructure may create negligible power and cooling
savings versus a disk-based backup system with deduplication. Seventy percent of business executives
measure the success of corporate green initiatives by tracking reductions in energy costs.5 If IT executives want
to align with business priorities, cutting power consumption via deduplication is a great start.
Another area where data deduplication supports IT initiatives is in data center consolidation. These solutions
reduce the number of storage systems needed to support backup and disaster recovery and help mitigate the
need for IT operations at distributed locations. Data deduplication also facilitates server virtualization
deployments as it eliminates much of the downside of server virtualization projects—virtual machine disk images
contain highly redundant data and increase storage capacity requirements. Through server virtualization,
customers can reduce the amount of servers in their environments and through deduplication, they can reduce
the amount of storage capacity.
Summary
The more information there is, the more it costs to maintain. Although always an important consideration, current financial uncertainty has elevated cost control to the top of IT management‟s priority list, creating an imperative for IT organizations to optimize environments and processes and wring out cost savings where possible. Importantly, cost reduction and efficiency cannot be gained at the expense of providing high levels of service—especially when it comes to protecting the information that drives the business.
Deduplication is one of the few IT solutions that cuts costs quickly and improves service levels. With it, organizations can reduce storage expenses without compromising data protection. It can also help align IT with business priorities—which 61% of IT executives said was their top management priority in 20096—by driving green and data center consolidation initiatives. Now that deduplication has proven itself out over the last few years, enterprise-class organizations are more widely adopting it. For these reasons, ESG believes CIOs and IT executives should look to deduplication for cost reduction projects in their environments.
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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
So You have a 30 day Data Retention Policy -- Think Again - September 10, 2009
Miami Florida ---- In the U.S. legal system, there are two fundamental obligations of all parties to a lawsuit. The first is to tell the other side about all information that might be relevant to the lawsuit. The second is to hand it all over.
In the good old days when information was just on paper, it was simpler to tell what you had. Someone created a list of all the filing cabinets and boxes of paper in storage, noted what was inside each and sent the list to the opposing party. Then the paper documents were gathered by staffers who put them in boxes and sent them to the company's legal counsel, who conducted a "privilege review" by flipping through page after page of the documents to determine whether any could be excepted.
The good old days are gone. In place of all those file cabinets, we now have electronic backup media, and IT holds the key to it all.
How important is it? Here's what can happen if your company is unable to tell what it has in a timely manner. In a lawsuit between businessman Ron Perelman and Morgan Stanley over a complicated deal, Perelman won. Or rather, Morgan Stanley lost. It lost because it didn't tell its opponents about backup tapes in its possession until after certain deadlines had passed. Morgan Stanley was late with this disclosure because more tapes turned up in a storage closet after deadline. It didn't lose on the facts of the lawsuit; it lost because the judge ruled that the company was flouting one of the fundamental obligations of our legal system: Tell what you have. This mistake cost Morgan Stanley $1.45 billion. (The verdict is being appealed.)
You can begin to avoid this kind of disaster by mentally assigning to each backup tape a value that reflects something of its true worth to your company should it become involved in a lawsuit. Imagine that each backup tape is worth, say, $1 million. Then think about how you would manage an information resource of that value.
Here are some suggestions:
Document your backup tape procedure. If you don't have a policy, write one. Imagine documenting the tape backup process so that your successor could keep things running the day after you've been hit by a bus. This is absolutely vital to defending whatever you do with tapes. The policy should:
1. Describe how your tape backup process works.
What data is written to which device, and what type of tape is used?
What is your tape-rotation cycle? (Which tapes get overwritten when?)
Where are tapes stored?
Who are the staffers responsible?
2. Describe how you account for tapes. The simplest method: Purchases minus destroyed tapes equals tape count.
3. Describe how and when you destroy tapes, and include a sample destruction certificate.
Review your corporate history. Consider that a lawsuit might go back five years. Then check to see if your company has merged or otherwise joined forces with any other company during that period. If so, be sure you have a complete inventory of the backup tapes in possession of the acquired company. Physically inspect the acquired company's site to check every possible location that backup tapes might be kept. Don't forget former managers who may have taken tapes off-site, storage providers that routinely handle backup tape storage, the old data center and the old IT manager's office. Remember, these tapes are worth a million dollars each. You want to find every one.
Remember, too, that the tapes created by an acquired company are now yours. You need to know as much about those tapes as any others in your custody.
Keep detailed records of the data recorded to tape. If someone asks you for all of Mr. Smith's and Ms. Green's e-mail and Microsoft Office documents from 2001 to 2004, it's far easier to provide that information if you have detailed data about tape contents.
Keep a simple accounting system for your tapes. Know what your current inventory of tapes is. Add any tapes you've purchased, and keep purchasing records to back this up. Subtract any tapes that have been destroyed, and keep written destruction certificates. Simple math will show you how many tapes you should be able to account for.
Use a records management system to keep track of your tapes. Whether software or index cards, it should enable you to identify the location, content and status of every tape at any moment. The number of tapes tracked in your records management system should match the number of tapes in your simple accounting system. If your company has a records manager, you may already be doing this. If not, start now.
Consider using a bar-coding system. Many records management systems readily accommodate bar-code input, and this makes it easy to create records about the location and status of a tape.
Decide who should authorize the destruction of tapes. Then always keep a written record of each tape destroyed, along with the authorizing signature. This documentation, together with your policy describing your tape-destruction schedule, is vital to answering the killer question: "Why don't you have this information?"
Remember, backup tapes aren't really worth a million dollars each unless you've got a lawsuit on the horizon. Then they're priceless.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/prod-storagesoftware.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
What Every Admin Needs to Know About Storage and Server Virtualization - September 10, 2009
Miami Florida ---- While most enterprises begin their virtualization foray at the server level, faith-based financial services firm Mennonite Mutual Aid (MMA) came at it from the storage side of the shop. The primary objective was remote disaster recovery, which a growing variety of virtualization capabilities can neatly address.
10 must-have virtualization tools
"If you think about virtualizing servers and consolidating storage, you'd go a long way toward building a disaster-recovery plan by positioning servers and secondary storage at a disaster recovery location," says Richard Plank, network operating system administrator for MMA, in Goshen, Ind.
At MMA, Plank migrated from a direct-attached storage environment to a tiered, virtual infrastructure with remote disaster recovery using Quantum Network Storage Server and VMware for server virtualization, as well as Quantum Virtual Tape Library (VTL) for backups. With the virtual setup, MMA avoided a forklift upgrade on the storage side, while meeting a 4-hour recovery time objective for mission-critical applications, he says.
VTL technology, which presents storage disks as tape drivers to backup software, also has helped New Orleans law firm McGlinchey Stafford meet its disaster recovery objectives, says Bob Pate, network operations manager for the firm.
Prior to using VTL, from Quantum, a full backup of the McGlinchey Stafford environment took as long as 95 hours, stretching throughout the weekend and into Wednesday midday, Pate says. "By switching to a Quantum DXi7500 environment, we went from an average transfer rate of about 250 megabytes per hour to 200 to 300 gigabytes per hour. Backups are down to 44 hours now," he says.
As an extra protection measure, since the firm has several office in hurricane zones, Pate uses VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) to consolidate virtual machine (VM) snapshots on a backup proxy server.
In the case of a hurricane, IT moves the device to a safe area as a precaution. In the case of an extended evacuation, such as occurred Hurricane Katrina, IT can restore these snapshots, bringing them online as needed. IT also ships this device between offices for backups of VMware installations prior to any firmware updates to servers and SANs or major changes to the environments, he describes.
Overall, virtualization vendors are striving to make storage and its associated backup processes easier to handle, industry watchers say. VMware, for example, included a bunch of storage-related updates in its latest release, vSphere 4.0. Thin provisioning is now available in vSphere, and Storage vMotion is integrated into the VMware management tool.
Particularly for backups, vSphere includes vStorage API for Data Protection. Along the lines of VCB, this API lets backup tools directly connect to VMs for incremental or full backup and restore
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 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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery on a SMB Budget - September 10, 2009
Miami Florida ---- Every business should have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Unfortunately, because the idea of developing one can seem time-consuming and tedious, many entrepreneurs choose to go without one. Although it’s always best to have a complete plan, it’s better to have a few crucial pieces than nothing at all. So even if you can’t do everything, do something says Brian McCarthy CEO for sencilo solutions a well known speaker on Data Protection.
That’s what Tommy Jones, chief operating officer of the Bones and Boxs, a provider of custom packaging to companies in the tristate area around New York City, did — just before a power surge in his office blew out a primary server. “We had started doing online backups literally three days before the server went down,” Mr. Oppenheimer said. “If we hadn’t had that safety net in place, I hate to even think about where we’d be right now.”
This guide is intended to simplify the disaster-recovery planning process by breaking the overall task into building blocks, covering major areas like data, communication and people. Use it as a starting point and adjust it to fit your own needs.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of developing a disaster-recovery plan on your own, hire an expert. Investing a few dollars now can save money — or even your entire business — down the road. “After 9/11 we knew we needed a D.R. plan for the business,” said Karin Ajmani, chief executive of U.S. Imaging Network. “We didn’t know where to begin, so I outsourced. We ended up with a really solid plan that everyone in the company is comfortable with from Sencilo Solutions. Fortunately, we haven’t needed it yet, but I definitely sleep better now.”
Whatever you do, don’t wait.
Data
The most common business disaster is data loss, which can result from a number of causes including human error, hardware failure, natural disaster and theft, says McCarthy. Fortunately, data loss is easy to recover from if you have a backup solution in place. To make sure you get the right solution for your business’s needs, follow these steps:
1. Familiarize yourself with your data. Know what you have, where it is and what is most important. If you walked into your office tomorrow and your data were gone, what would you miss the most?
2. Consider backup options. Your backup must be offsite, secure and available for recovery 24/7. One popular option that meets the above criteria, with the added benefit of ease of use and automation, is online backup. Other options include tape or backup to external media.
3. If you have chosen to outsource your backup needs, make sure that you choose a provider that offers security, monitoring and support.
4. Decide who will be responsible for either managing backups internally or working with your selected provider to get your backup solution carried out.
5. Do a run-through of the recovery process. Backup is nothing without recovery, so be sure that you are familiar with the recovery process and confident that it works smoothly. Your provider should be happy to walk you through a test-recovery procedure.
6. Review your data regularly to be sure you’re backing up everything you need. For example, if you add a new server in your office, your backups should reflect this addition. This should be done every other quarter if not once a quarter.
Contact and Communication
All the contact information and communication methods that you take for granted could be inaccessible in an emergency. Just ask Peter Laughter, chief executive of Wall Street Services, a temporary staffing and consulting firm servicing financial clients. He had to evacuate his downtown office on 9/11. “We had the foresight to have printouts of customer and employee contact information," he said — but there was no way for his clients to reach his employees.
Michael Adams, the director of information technology at Bush Ross, a law firm in Tampa, Fla., had a similar problem. During Hurricane Charlie, the firm’s T1 phone lines were down for 24 hours. “Our lawyers’ clients and the courts had no way of reaching them by phone, since they never gave out their cellphone numbers,” Mr. Adams said. “It was extremely stressful.”
The firm has since put a disaster-recovery plan in place for phone and fax lines. As part of your own planning, you should create backup contact lists and set up alternative methods of communication:
1. Decide on intercompany communication methods to be used if you cannot enter your office. Options include cellphones, instant messaging, Skype and a Web-based e-mail service like Gmail or Yahoo.
2. Make arrangements for incoming communications (how clients and others will reach you). Consider using a VoIP system like Grasshopper or Vonage, which let you forward your office lines to other numbers. Companies with 10 or more users might want to look into a more sophisticated hosted VoIP system like M5 .
3. Create contact lists so that you aren’t stuck without critical information when you lack access to your servers. Upload documents to an online location so that they are accessible from anywhere. There are secure online document storage sites for documents, like vSafe from Wells Fargo Bank or lockyourdocs.com, which is — full disclosure — part of my company.
People
For your plan to work, you need to prepare your employees so that they understand where to go and what to do if something happens:
1. Identify critical functions like setting up communication methods, drafting e-mail messages, contacting clients and vendors and handling insurance.
2. Decide who will be responsible for your critical functions.
3. Designate a location where everyone in your office will meet if you need to evacuate.
4. Designate an alternative working location (or locations), whether it be another office space you can use, or everyone working from home.
5. When your plan is complete, distribute it to every employee. Consider uploading a copy to an online location accessible to all employees at all times.
6. Review your plan with your employees regularly.
At some point your business is going to face an emergency situation, it’s just a matter of what type, what magnitude and when. The best preparation for any situation you may face is to have a well-thought-out plan in place and to educate your team on its elements.
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 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 Quorum's Virtual Optimization System (VOS) delivers a myriad of capabilities for virtualized application management, High availability, dynamic virtual resource management Xen application workload management,application measurement monitoring,quorum appliance,quorum,quorum,high availability solutions,application workload management,real time availability,real time workload management
The Next Generation of Network Backup Software has arrived - September 9, 2009
Orlando Florida --- Goold Health Systems, headquartered in Augusta, Maine, is a nationwide healthcare management organization specializing in pharmacy benefit services, clinical services, and secure data and storage services. Goold Health Systems (GHS) focuses exclusively on Medicaid management to customers including State Medicaid agencies, the Federal Government, private sector companies, and non-profit organizations. Founded in 1974, GHS has earned a reputation as a national leader in Medicaid health care management, data processing, and administration.
Challenges
As GHS continued to grow, so did the volumes of data required to be backed up. Weekly backup jobs, consisting of millions of small files, grew to exceed five (5) days, making daily incremental backups impossible. Data was accumulating during the work week and changes were not captured quickly enough to be part of the secondary offsite backup so these changes had to wait until the next job began.
Furthermore, all GHS backups needed to be backed up to disk and archived offsite indefinitely to tape. This requirement was made more complex because contractual commitments required GHS to run a separate backup job per customer, greatly increasing the complexity of the backup process.
Another requirement for GHS was to find a solution that could accommodate their Linux based infrastructure. They primarily use Red Hat systems for which their current solution had very poor support. Frequently, their backups would finish with exceptions—but no detailed error messages—leaving the IT administrator questioning what went wrong.
The goal for the new solution was to dramatically accelerate both full and incremental backups, to gain more reliable support for their Linux environment, and to increase overall usability.
Solution
GHS selected Arkeia Network Backup software with 200 flows, with 50 Linux and Windows Agents, two MySQL Agents, one 10 TB virtual tape library (VTL), Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape software and a 4 drive Dell PowerEdge 2950 LTO-4 tape library, and they selected Bronze-level Maintenance Support program.
Results
Upon installation of the Arkeia Software solution, GHS saw improvements immediately. Full backups were able to complete in less than a day, allowing incremental backups to run successfully. As a result, additional data could be backed up in less time.
“With Arkeia’s multiflow technology, we were able to see improvements in speed across the board, saving me time and allowing us to backup more data in less time than before,” stated Brian Butterfield, Linux System Administrator, Goold Health Systems. The flexibility of Arkeia Network Backup gives GHS the best of both worlds: the ability to backup millions of small files on a single server and the ability to backup large files on many servers. As a result, GHS enjoys the piece-of-mind of knowing all files are backed up in a timely fashion, regardless of location or size.
Another key factor in selecting Arkeia Software was the deep support for Linux. The GHS infrastructure runs primarily on Linux systems such as Red Hat Enterprise, Fedora, CentOS and used MySQL databases. “Other vendors state that they support Linux, however Arkeia has actual Linux clients that can handle special attributes of Linux, like Linux file systems, such as Proc,” said Butterfield.
Unlike its predecessor, Arkeia’s software was easy to deploy and manage. Features such as automated disk-to-disk-to-tape chaining and GUI based excludes and includes, saved administrative time and effort. Furthermore, Arkeia’s Wiki Guide provided on-line detailed technical documentation that was quick and easy to access.
“The Technical Support team has been great in resolving or responding quickly to problems that have occurred,” stated Butterfield. “I felt like my suggestions were addressed rather than just falling on deaf ears.”
Today, GHS uses Arkeia to deliver best-in-class data protection with fast, reliable and redundant backups.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/prod-storagesoftware.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts
Best Practices for data deduplication technology in disk-based backup - September 9, 2009
Orlando Florida --- Data deduplication promises to reduce the transfer and storage of redundant data, which optimizes network bandwidth and storage capacity. Storing data more efficiently on disk lets you retain data for longer periods or "recapture" data to protect more applications with disk-based backup, increasing the likelihood that data can be recovered rapidly. Transferring less data over the network also improves performance. Reducing the data transferred over a WAN connection may allow organizations to consolidate backup from remote locations or extend disaster recovery to data that wasn't previously protected. The bottom line is that data dedupe can save organizations time and money by enabling more data recovery from disk and reducing the footprint and power and cooling requirements of secondary storage. It can also enhance data protection.
Read the fine print when selecting a data dedupe product
The first point of confusion lies in the many ways storage capacity can be optimized. Data deduplication is often a catch-all category for technologies that optimize capacity. Archiving, single-instance storage, incremental "forever" backup, delta differencing and compression are just a few technologies or methods employed in the data protection process to eliminate redundancy and the amount of data transferred/stored. Unfortunately, firms have to wade through a lot of marketing hype to understand what's being offered by vendors who toss around these terms.
In data protection processes, dedupe is a feature available in backup applications and disk storage systems to reduce disk and bandwidth requirements. Data dedupe technology examines data to identify and eliminate redundancy. For example, data dedupe may create a unique data object with a hash algorithm and check that fingerprint against a master index. Unique data is written to storage and only a pointer to the previously written data is stored.
Granularity and dedupe
Another issue is the level of granularity the dedupe solution offers. Dedupe can be performed at the file, block and byte levels. There are tradeoffs for each method, including computational time, accuracy, level of duplication detected, index size and, potentially, the scalability of the solution.
File-level dedupe (or single-instance storage) removes duplicated data at the file level by checking file attributes and eliminating redundant copies of files stored on backup media. This method delivers less capacity reduction than other methods, but it's simple and fast.
Deduplicating at the sub-file level (block level) carves the data into chunks. In general, the block or chunk is "fingerprinted" and its unique identifier is then compared to the index. With smaller block sizes, there are more chunks and, therefore, more index comparisons and a higher potential to locate and eliminate redundancy (and produce higher reduction ratios). One tradeoff is I/O stress, which can be greater with more comparisons; in addition, the size of the index will be larger with smaller chunks, which could result in decreased backup performance. Performance can also be impacted because the chunks have to be reassembled to recover the data.
Byte-level reduction is a byte-by-byte comparison of new files and previously stored files. While this method is the only one that guarantees full redundancy elimination, the performance penalty could be high. Some vendors have taken other approaches. A few concentrate on understanding the format of the backup stream and evaluating duplication with this "content-awareness."
Where and when to dedupe
The work of data dedupe can be performed at one or more places between the data source and the target storage destination. Dedupe occurring at the app or file-server level (before the backup data is transmitted across the network) is referred to as client-side deduplication (a must-have if bandwidth reduction is important). Alternatively, dedupe of the backup stream can happen at the backup server, which can be referred to as proxy deduplication, or on the target device, which is called target-based deduplication.
Deduplication can be timed to occur before data is written to the disk target (inline processing) or after data is written to the disk target (post-processing).
Post-process deduplication will write the backup image to a disk cache before starting to dedupe. This lets the backup complete at full disk performance. Post-process dedupe requires disk cache capacity sized for the backup data that's not deduplicated plus the additional capacity to store deduped data. The size of the cache depends on whether the dedupe process waits for the entire backup job to complete before starting deduplication or if it starts to deduplicate data as it's written and, more importantly, when the deduplication process releases storage space.
Inline dedupe could negatively impact backup performance when the app uses a fingerprint database that grows over time. Inline approaches inspect and dedupe data on the way to the disk target. Performance degradation depends on several factors, including the method of fingerprinting, granularity of dedupe, where the inline processing occurs, network performance, how the dedupe technology workload is distributed and more.
Hardware versus software deduplication
Many of today's most popular hardware-based approaches may solve the immediate problem of reducing data in disk-to-disk backup environments, but they mask the issues that will arise as the environment expands and evolves, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo solutions and 30 year storage veteran.
The issue is software versus hardware. On the hardware side, purpose-built appliances offer faster deployments, integrating with existing backup software and providing a plug-and-play experience. The compromise? There are limitations when it comes to flexibility and scalability. Additional appliances may need to be added as demand for capacity increases, and the resulting appliance "sprawl" not only adds management complexity and overhead, but may limit deduplication to each individual appliance, says McCarthy.
With software approaches, disk capacity may be more flexible. Disk storage is virtualized, appearing as a large pool that scales seamlessly. In a software scenario, the impact on management overhead is less and the effect on deduplication may be greater since deduplication occurs across a larger data set than most individual appliance architectures.
Software-based client-side and proxy dedupe optimize performance by distributing dedupe processing across a large number of clients or media servers. Target dedupe requires powerful, purpose-built storage appliances as the entire backup load needs to be processed on the target. Because software implementations offer better workload distribution, inline dedupe performance may be improved over hardware-based equivalents.
Choosing a software or hardware approach may depend on your current backup software implementation. If the backup software in place doesn't have a dedupe feature or option, switching to one that does may pose challenges.
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
