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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
Secure data destruction for old backup tapes, disks, CD / DVDs and floppies - September 8, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Much of the emphasis in the data backup world revolves around recovering data, but what about data you want to destroy rather than recover? You don't want to just dump tape cartridges or disk in the trash. That's not green, and it may cause legal problems if the media contains personal information such as social security numbers. But there are environmentally friendly options for destroying backup media, whether it's tape or disk. There are also software programs that will overwrite data, and there is degaussing, which exposes the media to a powerful magnetic field and wipes out all of the data. Another option is to send your tapes to a company that offers tape destruction services.
According to a June 2009 research report by the Enterprise Strategy Group called "Protecting Confidential Data Revisited," 53% of large enterprises surveyed used "brute-force" methods, such as physically destroying their disk drives and tapes. Other enterprises used data destruction software (35%) and homegrown tools and processes (25%). But whatever method they chose, 82% of respondents said they have formal policies and procedures in place for data destruction of storage media.
Green data destruction
Russ Fellows, senior analyst with the Evaluator Group, considers destroying data with a degausser the greenest method for data destruction.
"However, multiple passes may be required in order to completely erase data," Fellows wrote in an email to SearchDataBackup. "The least efficient, but most secure way is to write random data over the tapes with multiple passes [similar to disk erasure], then degauss the tapes, followed by shredding or burning. Thus, the tradeoff is between efficiency and security."
But, he added, "For most companies, degaussing followed by shredding is secure and fairly efficient."
Kevin Beaver, founder and principal information security consultant of Principle Logic LLC, advises, "Outside of physical destruction, degaussing is a very reliable means for erasing backup tapes. The problem with basic degaussing is that there's not a 'yes' or 'no' confirmation that the destruction has indeed taken place. So, ideally, both degaussing combined with physical destruction would be best to ensure nothing's going to be recovered."
Outsourcing data destruction
Companies including Cintas Document Management, Iron Mountain Inc., Kroll Ontrack, and Sun Microsystems offer tape destruction services.
"Service costs vary widely, but typically involve billing for time, on-site visit, media handling, etc.," Fellows said. "Costs also vary depending upon the level of destruction. Services can include data overwrite to DOD standards, bulk data erasure with a degausser and may optionally include physical destruction of media via shredding."
But is outsourcing data destruction really secure?
"It's as safe and as reliable as the humans and technologies involved in the process," Beaver said. "So, there's no way to know for sure. That said, by and large, outsourcing data destruction to reputable companies is safe. If anything, you've transferred the risk to a third party -- at least to an extent -- something management and legal counsel like to do."
However, he added, "If something still goes awry [a lost tape, failed destruction and subsequent recovery, etc., the odds are good that you're still going to be on the hook and receiving end of a compliance penalty or lawsuit."
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 x1910 or visit us at:
Top reasons not to buy storage - archive, de-dupe, primary storage compression, thin provisioning and more - June 8, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Revenue from sales of storage systems is plummeting thanks to the economic downturn, even as the total amount of storage capacity sold continues to boom.
That's the key message from analyst firm IDC, which Friday released its Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker report for the first quarter of 2009.
Disk storage systems revenue totaled $5.6 billion in the first quarter of 2009, down 18.2 percent compared to the same quarter of 2008, according to IDC.
This drop happened despite an increase in the amount of storage capacity sold during the quarter of 14.8 percent over last year to reach 2,146 petabytes, IDC said.
The huge drop in revenue despite the fast rise in total capacity sold comes as a result of a lot of discounting going on in the storage market, said Elizabeth Conner, research analyst at IDC.
"The economy is not good," Conner said. "But people still need storage. So instead of midrange storage products, customers are stepping down to smaller, entry-level products. Or instead of data center-class storage, customers are stepping down to the midrange."
Vendors are also cutting prices, probably more aggressively than in the past, Conner said.
IDC tracks storage sales according to price bands based on the average configuration, and is seeing a lot of business move from the $500,000-plus price band into the $300,000 to $500,000 range.
"We saw growth in the $300,000 to $500,000 band which we didn't expect," she said. "Vendors are still selling those higher-end systems, but taking a big price cut to get them sold."
Conner also said that vendors are setting themselves up for trouble later if they try to raise prices as the economy recovers.
"I definitely feel vendors will see some resistance if they try to go back later and sell the storage at $500,000 instead of $300,000 without major improvements in the technology," she said. Storage veteran Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo solutions in Lake Mary Florida has been saying for over a year, "stop buying storage". There is so much new technology that compresses primary storage up to 10:1, that you could put off new purchases for the next decade.
The fastest-growing part of the storage business is the under-$50,000 range, Conner said. Sales of that type of storage, typically seen in small offices, home businesses and remote offices, is growing not only because those types of customers are seeing growth, but because midrange and enterprise customers are also buying it. "The features are more and more the same as higher-priced storage," she said.
As a result, large tier-one storage vendors are seeing more of their sales move away from their higher-priced products and towards their lesser-priced product lines, Conner said. And smaller vendors are also seeing a good uptick in sales.
"Some of the smaller companies are focusing more on such features as iSCSI or energy efficiency, which means customers might be better able to get exactly the storage they need at a lower cost from such vendors," she said. Big companies are using more iSCSI then ever before. Sencilo solutions was one of the first to introduce Microsoft's UDDS 2003 based on iSCSI and has sold some two peta-bytes over the past five years.
IDC breaks storage revenue into two broad classes. The first is total disk storage systems revenue, which encompasses all storage sold including storage internal to servers. The second is total external disk storage systems revenue, which includes storage arrays and other appliances.
Both classes only count the factory revenue, but not an OEM's sales of other vendors' products. For instance, a Dell (NSDQ:Dell) Clariion manufactured by EMC (NYSE:EMC) but sold by Dell would be counted in EMC's total.
HP (NYSE:HPQ) was the leading vendor, with storage revenue of $975 million, down 25.8 percent compared to last year.
It was followed by EMC at No. 2 with revenue of $871 million, down 16.0 percent for the quarter; IBM at $811 million, down 21.7 percent; Dell at $660 million, down 17.2 percent; Hitachi at $410 million, down 8.5 percent; and NetApp at $373 million, down 13.5 percent.
Total worldwide external disk storage systems revenue was $4.2 billion during the first quarter of 2009, down 13.6 percent compared to the same period of 2008.
EMC retained its traditional lead with revenue of $871 million for the first quarter of 2009, down 16.0 percent compared to the same quarter of 2008.
It was followed by HP at No. 2 with storage revenue of $482 million, down 19.6 percent; IBM at $476 million, down 15.0 percent; Dell at $410 million, down 8.8 percent; Hitachi at $394 million, down 9.1 percent; and NetApp at $373 million, down 13.5 percent.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 x1910 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/data-reduction.php
About Us
Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Dell NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts 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 Reasons to Archive Your Data - May 9, 2009
Orlando Florida
1. Electronic Discovery.
Recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure made it clear that any information stored in a visual format can be called upon in court, including emails, attachments, and calendar files. Archiving captures file and message content, attachment information, and all metadata for faster, more accurate search results. Many archiving products leverage advanced e-discovery features, such as searching by full text key word and key phrase, word proximity, file size, format, data, sender, recipients, and more.
2. Compliance.
Industry as well as federal regulations, like Sarbanes-Oxley, require companies to preserve electronic business records in a secure but easily accessible manner. Real-time, or journal, archiving ensures that companies capture every piece of information before employees can delete it. Archived information is secure behind corporate firewalls from outside parties, while intensive access control features restrict employees’ ability to access and manipulate archived data. Retrieving data from an archive is a matter of defining search terms and hitting the ‘search’ button, then waiting a few seconds.
3. Reducing storage.
While the cost of storing data is decreasing, the price of managing data is growing, causing many organizations to reconsider their current storage methods. The first step toward better storage management that archiving provides is a centralized repository. An archive with in-process compression and de-duplication reduces storage volumes, while automated policy application significantly reduces time spent managing storage.
4. Getting back hours of productivity from employees.
Employees generally spend more than an hour every week managing their inbox and historical files. Automated archiving gives employees back time that they can spend on current projects, instead of worrying about retaining old records. IT administrators will quickly get used to having an extra few hours a week to spend on other projects.
5. Streamlining records management.
When employees create local archive files and take business records home on Flash drives, it’s hard to determine where your company’s critical business records are and what information is available. Import your PSTs into a centralized archive and automatically capture (and sometimes restrict) emails and historical files from employees for comprehensive, convenient top-down records management.
6. Reducing the risk of human error.
CIO.com recently reported that the bulk of corporate security threats originate with employee behavior. Improper electronic records management ranges from deleting vital intelligence or incriminating emails to saving records that should not be retained. This is not to say that all users intend to misuse their email, but many tend to forget that improper retention places the company at risk. Many even consider themselves doing the company a favor when they create local archive files or save data on private disks, forgetting that this de-centralizes data and makes it more easily available to those who might misuse it. Automating email and records management takes the responsibility of managing inboxes and historical files off of employees.
7. Securing critical intelligence.
A continuation of number six, improper records management can result in valuable information becoming easily available to hackers or laptop thieves. Aside from external threats, organizations must consider the threat of malicious or ignorant employees. Without regulating information access, business-critical intelligence can be manipulated, erased, exposed or otherwise misused by an employee or outside party. Archiving software can be installed behind your corporate firewall, with role-based, password-protected archive access, encrypted archive storage, and ‘restricted’ zones.
8. Preparing for disaster.
Should your primary database or server go down, anything not saved after your most recent backup will be lost. Using real-time, or journal, archiving, you can capture every piece of information that goes through your email server, while consistent file archiving sessions minimize data loss. Run consistent backups of your email archive to ensure all your emails and files are available for retrieval in emergencies. The centralized archive also streamlines and speeds up the disaster recovery process.
9. Encouraging accountability.
Creating and implementing policies for managing email and other business records promotes transparency of operations. Archiving policies can be applied universally or customized for specific employees. Employees often improve their email and file use behavior when they realize that every email they send can be easily reviewed by their superior.
10. Locating problematic behavior.
Employees who consistently attempt to abuse email and records management policies are a threat to the entire company. Locate problematic behaviors and address them before things get out of hand with archive user access reports, which alert the administrator when an employee attempts to perform a restricted action in the archive.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 x1910 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
Don't Buy Storage - let us show you why - April 13, 2009
Orlando Florida -- Explosive data growth, combined with the proliferation of disparate storage management tools and technologies, has created a significant challenge for IT managers tasked with provisioning and maintaining multi-vendor storage environments. As the market leader in storage management, Symantec can help your organization take control of storage growth. Our advanced solutions provide end-to-end visibility, reporting, and manageability of storage environments, enabling the reclamation of unused or wasted storage space to defer costly storage hardware purchases and reduce administration costs. In addition, you can expect improved data access via availability, performance, and security enhancements.
Challenges
IT managers today must master a difficult balancing act: manage fast-growing data storage, achieve user and application performance level needs, and stay within budget. And, yet, while rapid data growth is increasing storage expenditures, the average data center utilizes only 62 percent of its available storage. The lack of visibility and manageability is preventing enterprises from fully exploiting their assets. By reclaiming unused capacity, vast amounts of expensive, high-performance storage capacity can be made available for reuse, deferring the need to purchase additional high-end devices.
Solutions
Sencilo Solution consultants can implement solutions that optimize storage resources to suit your environment, regardless of storage topology, operating environment, or storage hardware. Our phased approach to storage optimization includes: discovery/visualization, storage reporting, storage reclamation, data classification, and policy/process automation. Sencilo’s industry-standard technologies such as storage virtualization, RAID, and others can be configured to maximize disk utilization and accommodate specific environments such as databases or clustered file systems. In addition, our consultants can tune and optimize I/O performance and also determine where database performance hotspots exist by mapping database objects through to the backend storage devices. They can also configure volume or file system level snapshots for database cloning, fast recovery, or off-host processing.
Why Sencilo Solutions?
Teaming with Sencilo consultants, your IT staff can master the difficult balance of meeting your requirements for storage, user and application performance, and budget constraints. By optimizing storage utilization, you can defer expensive storage purchases and significantly reduce your IT asset costs.
Guaranteed
If our recommandations and services do not reclaim over 50% of your primary storage, you do not pay a dime. That is our promise to you! With hundreds of satified clients, Sencilo is so confident in our solutions we will stand behind this claim, 100%.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 x1910 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-assessment.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
