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iSCSI adoption picks up

Note: Includes both end users and integrators/VARs

Source: InfoStorQuickVote reader poll

No plans to use iSCSI Have already implemented

Will implement within the next year

32%

31%

37%

WWW.INFOSTOR.COM

INSIDE

THE LEADING SOURCE FOR ENTERPRISE STORAGE PROFESSIONALS VOLUME 11, NO. 7 JULY 2007

CONT INUED ON PAGE 21CONT INUED ON PAGE 17

S P E C I A L R E P O R T S

In the News

EMC supersizes VTLs, extends de-dupe p. 8 Hitachi ups the ante in content archiving p. 8 Brocade enters HBA market via LSI p. 10 Start-up offers IP storage clusters p. 18

Features

The real state of SRM, part 2 p. 33Storage resource management (SRM) challengesinclude multi-vendor support, homegrown vs.vendor tools, and the trend toward SRM suites.

Introducing data warehouse appliances p. 35Workload-optimized storage appliances are tunedto specifc applications and I/O workloads.

BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

Brocade is making good on its post-McData ac-

quisition product road map with the launch o

nearly a dozen enhancements to its SAN and

ile area network (FAN) oerings, all while

tightening interoperability between the com-

panies respective products and attempting to

shed its reputation as a block-level-only stor-

age company.

Brocade beeed up a number o its SAN hard-

ware and sotware products with new manage-

ment, virtualization, interoperability, and con-

nectivity enhancements. For example, the

company announced the addition o 10Gbps

Fibre Channel connectivity to its 48000 direc-

tor in the orm o the new FC10-6 blade, which

is aimed at connecting systems between remote

sites or high-perormance business continuity

and disaster-recovery applications.

The FR4-18i router blade and model 7500

routing platorm have also been tweaked to

Brocade upgradesSAN, FAN products

Vendors, users grapplewith power concerns BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

Storage systems are major o-

enders when it comes to power

consumption in the data center,

but in the quest

or energy-

eicient

tech-nology

the o-

cus, at

least so

ar, has

been pri-

marily on

microproces-

sors and servers. So

why has storage lown un-

der the radar? It could be that,

aside rom reducing raw capac-

ity, the industry has yet to come

up with a clear-cut answer to the

problem.

There is not an obvious and

straightorward approach

to saving energy

in the storage

environmentbecause disks

are going to

spin. The

only way

you are go-

ing to save is

to stop them

rom spinning,

says John Webster,

principal IT advisor with

the Illuminata research and con-

sulting irm.

Server virtualization:The case for iSCSI BY DAVE SIMPSON

In the context o server virtualization and storage,

end users and vendors agree: Separate the storage

rom the server. Maximizing the beneits o serv-

er virtualization (such as resource consolidation)

requires shared storage, which means SANs.

According to International Data Corp., about

80% o virtual servers are connected to SANs.And, today, virtually all o them are Fibre Channel

SANs. However, iSCSI-based IP SANs may have

inherent advantages in the context o server virtu-

alization environments.

According to Matt Bak-

er, product manager, stor-

age marketing, at Dell, the

beneits o iSCSI in a vir-

tual server environment all

into three categories:

Reducing the complex-

Tape market update:LTOs the bright spot BY DAVE SIMPSON P. 24

CONT INUED ON PAGE 10 BY MICHELLE HOPE

Options abound fortape, disk encryption

P. 30

ontents Zoom In Zoom Out Search Issue Next Por navigat ion ins truc tions please c lick here

ontents Zoom In Zoom Out Search Issue Next Por navigat ion ins truc tions please c lick here

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E

C

I

A

L

R

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O

R

T

S

2007

VOL . 11, NO. 7

CONTINUED

NEWS ANALYSIS AND TRENDS

1 Brocade upgrades SAN, FAN productsAlmost a dozen introductions span the spectrumrom switches to sotware.

1 Vendors, users grapple with power

concernsBut theres more than one way to end the powerstruggle.

1 Server virtualization:The case for iSCSIMost VMs are connected to FC SANs,but IP SANs may have inherent advantages.

8 EMC supersizes VTLs, extends de-dupeDL6000 series scales up to 1.8PB (compressed) and2,400 disk drives. De-duplication now available orNAS, VMware.

8 Hitachi ups the ante in content archivingAlso on the supersizing ront, the HCAP supportsup to 20PB in an 80-node archive system.

8 NetBackup upgrade focuses on D2DVersion 6.5 o Symantecs fagship backup/recoverysotware works with D2D, VTL, CDP, and otherenvironments.

10 Brocade enters HBA market via LSIBut aces an uphill battle against the Emulex-QLogic

duopoly.

14 Continuity Software tackles DR testingStart-up thinks it has a smarter approach to disasterrecovery.

18 Start-up offers IP storage clustersPivot3s RAIGE architecture provides virtualdistributed RAID.

Tape marketupdate: LTOsthe bright spotLTO libraries accounted

for more than 88% of unit

shipments last year, and

the LTO-4 format promises

to extend the technologys

dominance.

BY DAVE SIMPSON

p. 24

Options aboundfor tape, diskencryptionChoices include software-

based encryption, switch-

based encryption, drive-

or library-based encryption,

and dedicated appliances.

BY MICHELE HOPE

p. 30

JulyPrevious Page Contents Zoom In Zoom Out Front Cover Search Issue Next PageIS

Previous Page Contents Zoom In Zoom Out Front Cover Search Issue Next PageIS

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2007

VOL . 11, NO. 7

July INFOSTORTHE LEADING SOURCE FOR ENTERPRISE STORAGE PROFESSIONAL

PRINTED IN THE USA GST NO. 12681315

Publications Mail Agreement Number 1421603InfoStor (ISSN 1097-2501 ) is published 12 times per year monthly by PennWell Corp., 1421 S. Shidan, Tulsa, OK 74112. Periodicals Postage paid at Tulsa, OK 74101 and additional mailing offices.Editorial offices are located at 98 Spit Brook Rd., Nashua, NH 03062-5737. Subscription prices: Frto qualified information storage professionals in North America. Other subscribers in U.S. $120 onyear, Canada $155 one year, Europe $190 one year. Call (847) 559-7500 for subscription informatioMicrofilm copies of InfoStor may be purchased from University Microfilms, a Xerox Company, 300 NZeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106. POSTMASTER:Send change of address form to: InfoStor P.O. B3263 Northbrook, IL 60065-95 49. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to P.O. Box 122, NiagFalls, ON L2E 6S4 2007 InfoStor by PennWell. All rights reserved. We make portions of osubscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that maybe important for your work. If you do not want to receive those offers and/or information, please leus know by contacting us at List Services, InfoStor, 98 Spit Brook Rd., Nashua, NH 03062. All rightreserved. Corporate Officers of PennWell: Frank T. Lauinger, Chairman; Robert F Biolchini, Presidenand CEO; and Mark C. Wilmoth, CFO. Corporate offices: 1421 South Sheridan Road, Tulsa, OK 7411Tel: (918) 835-3161, fax: (918) 831-9497. Web address: www.pennwell.com. Authorization to photcopy items for internal and personal use or for internal and personal use of specific clients is grantby InfoStor ISSN 1097-2501 provided that the appropriate fee is paid directly to Copyright ClearanCenter, 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923 USA, tel: (978) 750-8400. Prior to photocopying itemfor educational use, please contact Copyright Clearance Center Inc., 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, M01923 USA, tel: (978) 750-8400. To subscribe or to change your format to print or digital, please goto www.ifs-subscribe.com . Note: International subscriptions are available in digital format only.

Senior Vice President, Mark FinkelsteinGroup Publishing Director [email protected]

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Freelance Writer Michele Hope Contributing Analysts/ Heidi Biggar, ESG Consultants Steve Duplessie, ESG

David Hill, Mesabi GroupSteve Norall, Taneja GroupBrad ONeill, Taneja GroupArun Taneja, Taneja GroupDavid Vellante,Wikibon

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Founded in 1910, PennWell is an informationcompany with 40 magazines and related

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for business and industry worldwide.

FEATURES

33 The real state of SRM, part 2Storage resource management (SRM) challengesinclude multi-vendor support, homegrown vs. vendor tools,and the trend toward SRM suites.

35 Introducing data warehouse appliancesWorkload-optimized storage appliances are tunedto specic applications and I/O workloads.

SNIA ON STORAGE

37 ILM isnt just about storageStorage-ocused implementers can learn a lotrom non-storage IT disciplines.

DEPARTMENTS6 Editorial

6 Business Briefs

38 New Products

42 Ad Index

42 Editorial Index



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No one understands the importance of keeping your bases covered better than a big league

baseball team. Thats why when one of the leagues most technically savvy teams starteddigitally capturing every at-bat, they chose solutions from Overland Storage to meet their

increasing data storage and protection needs. Because Overlands solutions are exible,scalable and affordable, the team spends less time managing their data, and more time

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INFOSTOR www.infostor.com J UL Y 20076

EDITORIAL

To dupe, or not to dupeis not a question

DATA DE-DUPLICATION SPECIALIST Data Domains suc-

cessul IPO last month was a clear signal that this tech-

nology has hit the big time. The IPO occurred amidst alurry o de-duplication-related announcements.

Quantum, or example, says that later this year itwill deliver a system that supports both inline and post-

process de-duplication, which would give users an op-

tion while icing the controversy between the two ap-

proaches. (Quantum got its data de-dupe technology inits acquisition o ADIC, which had acquired de-dupe pioneer Rocksot.)

Network Appliance and others are extending data de-dupe beyond its tradi-

tional role in backup scenarios, into nearline and primary storage devices and

applications (see NetApp extends de-dupe beyond backups, InfoStor, June2007, p. 8).

Users will have to wait until early next year to get data de-duplication unc-tionality on EMCs disk libraries (aka virtual tape libraries, or VTLs), but the

company recently announced support or data de-dupe in both its VMware and

NAS platorms (see EMC supersizes VTLs, extends de-dupe, p. 8).How hot is the data de-duplication market? Pretty hot. The 451 Group

research and consulting irm expects it to grow rom $100 million last year to

DAVE SIMPSONEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

more than $250 million this year. At that growth rate, it

could become a $1 billion market by 2009.

The rapid growth is due to the act that data de-dupli-cation is, or the most part, a no-brainer technology that

has immediate appeal to end users. It provides a sharpreduction in required capacity as well as high-speed recov-

ery, with ew drawbacks other than having to evaluate the

various approaches (inline vs. post-process, hash-based ver-

sus byte-level, etc.).Users also have to watch out or vendors insane de-dupe

ratio claims. Some vendors, or example, claim a 500x re-

duction. Reality: Results rom a recent end-user survey by

the 451 Group indicate that most de-duplication users ex-perience a 15x to 20x reduction in data, although a ew

achieved greater than 50x. Other respondents experienceddata-reduction rates o less than 5x.

The July issue oInfoStor will include an in-depth look

at the data de-duplication market and the various tech-nology approaches, as well as end users experiences and

expectations.

NEC selected Xyratex Ltd.s

E5412E SAS/SATA RAID sys-tem as the external storage so-

lution or its IA server NEC Ex-

press5800. Separately, CorData,a storage networking solutions

provider, has chosen the Xyra-tex F5402E 4Gbps RAID system

as a component in its line o net-

worked storage solutions.

3PAR announced support or a

new storage consolidation solu-tion that pairs its InServ Storage

Server with Network Appliances

V-Series systems.

StoneFly, a subsidiary o

Dynamic Network Factory(DNF), has signed more than

50 new channel partners as part

o its MVP Channel Program.About 75% o its channel part-

ners are in the US.

iStor Networks recently rolled

out its inAbled Channel PartnerProgram, which initially includes

distributors, integrators, and re-

sellers such as Arbitech, Aura-

Gen, Condre, RAID Inc., and VarielTechnology. Other iStor channelpartners include Accusys, ASUS,

Axstor, Coma Zalohovaci Sys-

temy, Gigabyte, Kano, Netweb,

PDE Technology, Thinkmate,

and XSI Data Solutions. Sepa-rately, iStor Networks has signedArbitech LLC as a distribution

partner. Arbitech will distributethe iS325 storage system, which

combines iStors GigaStor iSCSInetwork storage controller and

up to 15 SATA drives. The sys-

tem is available with our or eight1Gbps Ethernet ports, or one

10Gbps Ethernet port.

Hewlett-Packard has inte-

grated 4Gbps Fibre ChannelHBAs and EZPilot sotware

rom Emulex in the new HP

EVA4100 SAN Starter Kit.

Zeteras Z-SAN technology is

currently shipping as the ounda-tion or Netgears Storage Cen-

tral Turbo (SC101T).

Tek-Tools has a reseller agree-ment with AdviStor, a provider o

data storage and data-protectionsolutions. AdviStor will sell and

support Tek-Tools Proiler Suite.

QLogics SANbox 6140 intel-ligent storage router has been

qualiied with Symantecs Net-Backup sotware.

Sonasoft has signed a sales

and marketing agreement withthe North American Compo-

nents (NAC) business oArrow

Electronics. Arrow will sell

Sonasots Point-Click Recoverysotware or MicrosoftExchange,

SQL, and Windows ile systems.

TimeSpring Software and

LeftHand Networks have en-

tered into a sales and technolo-gy alliance. Components include

TimeSprings TimeData continu-

ous data protection (CDP) sot-ware and LetHands SAN/iQ

SAN platorm.FalconStor Software and V2Electronics have a new range o

storage appliances based on V2shardware platorms and Falcon-

Stors data-protection sotware,including IPStor, VirtualTape

Library, Continuous Data Protec-

tion, and Network Storage Sys-tem (NSS) sotware.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 21BUSIN

ESSB

RIEFS



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What are your plans for virtual tape libraries(VTLs)?

Q:

Will implementthis year

36%

No plansto use VTLs

37%

Source: InfoStorQuickVote reader survey

Have alreadyimplemented

27%

CAS implementation plansFixed content/content-addressed

storage (CAS) array

In use now

In pilot/ evaluation

In near-term planIn long-term plan

Not in plan

Source: TheInfoPro


NEWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

EMC recently rolled out a pair o

large, Symmetrix-based virtual

tape systems and several new sot-

ware upgrades or data de-duplica-

tion, backup, and archiving.

The EMC Disk Library 6000

series scales up to 1.8PB o com-

pressed capacity and can back

up more than 11TB per hour,

according to company claims.

The 6000 series currently oers

hardware compression, but users

seeking data de-duplication ca-

pabilities will have to wait until

early 2008, which is when EMC

says data de-dupe will be made

available across its entire amily

o disk libraries.

EMC boosted the scalability

and perormance o its new librar-

ies by basing the DL6000 series on

the Symmetrix DMX-3 platorm,

versus the midrange Clariion,

which serves as back-end storage

or the companys other virtual

tape library (VTL) systems.

The DL6100 supports up to

1,440 disk drives per system and

oers RAID-5 protection with a

maximum uncompressed capac-

ity o 615TB, or up to 1.845PB

o compressed capacity. The

DL6300 supports up to 2,400

drives and oers RAID-1 pro-

tection with a maximum un-

compressed capacity o 584TB,

or 1.752PB compressed.

The DL6000 series is clearly

targeted at our largest customers

who have gigantic data centers

and gigantic backup-and-restore

problems, says Jay Krone,

director o storage product

marketing at EMC. There

are also a lot o Symmetrix

customers who want to con-

tinue to use the array that

theyre amiliar with.

EMCs Disk Library am-

ily touts consolidated media

management that gives users

control o their entire tape

pool through a single applica-

tion interace, thereby elim-

inating some o the redundant

management tasks commonly

associated with managing mul-

tiple VTLs in traditional deploy-

ment scenarios. The libraries al-

so eature Active Engine Failover,

which kicks in when a processor

engine ails, and enables automat-

ic ail-over to a second processor

engine so that the disk library is

able to continue servicing the

backup server or application.

Heidi Biggar, an analyst with

the Enterprise Strategy Group,

says EMCs transition rom Clari-

ion to Symmetrix as the ounda-

tion or DL6000 libraries boosts

capacity and perormance.

EMC supersizes VTLs, extends de-dupe

BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

Hitachi Data Systems has unveiled a new version

o its Content Archive Platorm with a slew o en-

hanced eatures in replication, security, de-duplica-

tion, and compression, but the selling point could

potentially be the sheer size o the system.

Version 2.0 o the Hitachi Content Archive Plat-orm (HCAP) can support up to 20PB o storage in

an 80-node archive system. A single HCAP node

can scale up to 400 million objects (iles, meta-

data, and policies), and an 80-node system can

support up to 32 billion objects. Hitachi claims

the platorm outper-

orms previous-gen-

eration CAS systems

by 470%.

When it comes to

building out the ar-

chive, Hitachis ap-

proach is to scale ar-

chive server nodesand storage capacity

independently rather than requiring additional

servers and processing power to scale storage.

The launch o HCAP 2.0 comes on the heels o

the debut o Hitachis latest high-end storage array:

the Universal Storage Platorm (USP) V. And its

no coincidence that the two platorms have a lot

o technology in common.

The new release o the Content Archive Plat-

orm shares the same philosophy o disaggregat-

ing servers and storage as the recently announced

USP V platorm, says Asim Zaheer, senior direc-

tor o business development or content archiving

at HDS.

The USP V touts the combination o a virtu-

alization layer with thin-provisioning sotware to

oer users consolidation, external storage virtual-

ization, and the power and cooling advantages othin provisioning.

The combination o the aorementioned tech-

nologies allows or the management o up to

theoretically247PB o virtualized capacity, about

670% more than the previous-generation Tagma-

Store USP platorm. The com-

pany also claims a maximum

perormance o 3.5 million I/Os

per second (IOPS), a 5x increase

over its previous arrays.

The HCAP can attach to a

virtual storage pool with the

USP V, thereby acting as an ar-

chive tier o storage where ageddata on primary storage can be

moved. Data in the archive can be oloaded rom

expensive disk to less expensive ATA or Serial

ATA (SATA) storage.

The previous version o Hitachis archiving

product, until now, had only been oered as an

appliance based on the TagmaStore Workgroup

Modular Storage model WMS100 with servers that

oered sotware connectivity into the inrastruc-

ture. Zaheer says Hitachi will continue to oer

CONT I N UE D ON PAGE 14 CON T IN UED ON PAG E 12

Hitachi ups the antein content archiving

BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

Disk, tape, data movement: It

doesnt matter. Symantec wants

to uniy the management o all

things backup. And the compa-

ny is betting that the disk-based

backup support, application opti-

mization upgrades, and new pric-

ing model or the latest release

o its lagship sotware, Veritas

NetBackup 6.5, will attract users

looking or a single product or

enterprise data protection.

NetBackup 6.5 is capable o

managing tape, virtual tape li-

braries (VTLs), disk backup, da-

ta de-duplication, continuous

data protection (CDP), snap-

shots, and replication process-

NetBackup upgrade

ocuses on D2D

CONT INUED ON PAGE 23



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Other15.2%

LSI5%

Emulex35.3%

QLogic44.5%

Source: Dell'Oro Group

FC HBA market shares, Q1 2007


EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

BY DAVE SIMPSON

This month, Brocade marked its entryinto the Fibre Channel host bus adapt-

er (HBA) market with shipments o re-

branded adapters rom LSI, putting the

company in direct competition with mar-

ket leaders Emulex and QLogic (which

combined, have a market share o more

than 80%). Last month, Brocade entered

the iSCSI HBA market with cards based

on its own technology.

The DellOro Group market research

irm expects the Fibre Channel HBA

market to top $1 billion this year.

But many observers conjectured that

the announcement was not so much about

Brocade seeking to boost its revenues via

HBA sales, or about gaining market sharebut, rather, it was more about being able

to tell a soup-to-nuts SAN inrastructure

story to gain a competitive advantage over

its biggest rivalCisco. In other words,

Brocade might be shooting BBs at Emu-

lex and QLogic, but its big guns are still

aimed where theyve always beenat the

800-pound networking gorilla.

At least thats the take o one new-

ound competitor (and partner): Bro-

cade needs ways to compete against their

biggest competitor, and this move gives

them a bit o a dierentiator, says Mike

Smith, executive vice president o world-

wide marketing at Emulex, but its not

like theres a new player in the market.We do not expect this to have an impact

on our business, and we expect to contin-

ue to partner with Brocade on bringing

best-o-breed solutions to market.

Brocades 4Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs

are available in single- or dual-port mod-

els and are compatible with the PCI-

Express host bus. Although Brocades

initial oray into Fibre Channel HBAs is

based on LSI products, uture generations

(e.g., 8Gbps HBAs) will be based on Bro-

cades own intellectual property and will

have more-competitive dierentiators,

according to Tom Buiocchi, Brocades

vice president o worldwide marketing.

At 8Gbps, Brocade will have their own

technology, but the LSI deal gives them

a jump-start into the HBA market and

will give them a good eel or whether

they can crack the very strong shell that

QLogic and Emulex have built around the

Brocade enters HBA market via LSI

Brocade FROM COVERoer better perormance or remote di-

saster-recovery applications with the ad-

dition o Fast Write acceleration technol-

ogy. Fast Write improves the response

times o synchronous applications over

longer distances and boosts the overall

throughput o data transers over dark

iber or xWDM WAN links or more-

eicient utilization o WAN bandwidth.

Brocade oicials claim the Fast Write

eature improves data protection by

accelerating the perormance o remotedisaster-recovery applications, such as

disk mirroring, by up to 200%.

Beyond the speeds and eeds, Brocade

also announced a number o enhance-

ments to both the Enterprise Fabric Con-

nectivity Manager (EFCM) and Fabric

Manager, its dueling SAN inrastructure

management applications. The compa-

ny added Advanced Call Home eatures

to EFCM and perormance monitoring

unctionality to Fabric Manager.

The uture oundation o Brocades

SAN management sotware will be the

EFCM, ormerly known as the McDataEFCM. The Fabric Manager sotware will

continue to be oered and enhanced un-

til its unctionality is built into a con-

verged EFCM application, which is due

next year.

Brocade has stated that it will sell and

support existing Brocade and McData

products through the end o this year

with the ultimate goal o combining the

best elements o the portolio into com-

mon, integrated hardware and sotware

products in 2008.

One o our biggest eorts is in achiev-

ing ull interoperability between Mc-

Data and Brocade abrics and products

like the Brocade Access Gateway, and

the enhancements to EFCM help with

that interoperability, according to Truls

Myklebust, senior director o product mar-

keting or Brocades FAN solutions.

To that end, the Brocade Access Gate-

way, a virtualization platorm that enables

interoperability between Brocade and

McData switches, will now be availableon the entry-level Brocade 200E switch.

The company also released the next

generations o its Fabric Application

Platorms or virtualizationthe FA4-18

application blade or the 48000 director

and the model 7600 Application Plat-

orm. The Fabric Application Platorm

serves as the oundation or virtualiza-

tion solutions such as EMCs Recover-

Point and Invista.

FAN features for branch offices

Brocade hasnt orgotten about the ile-

level world. In act, its ast becoming amain ocus o the companys overall da-

ta-center strategy. The company contin-

ues to build out its FAN portolio or ad-

vanced ile-based data management and

protection rom the data center to the

branch oice and back.

Topping the FAN upgrades is a new

release o StorageX. Version 6.0 o the

sotware eatures additional capabili-

ties or ile migration in both CIFS and

NFS environments. The release provides

tighter integration with Windows Server

2003 R2, broadens Unix platorm sup-

port, and allows organizations to have

more control over data movement dur-

ing migration and storage load balanc-

ing procedures.

StorageX has always been very ocused

on Windows [CIFS] environments and

that has served us well, but obviously we

see customers with environments that al-

so have Unix [NFS], says Myklebust, so

were rolling out much broader coverage

and support or other environments.Brocade also unveiled a new version

o its File Liecycle Manager (FLM)

product. FLM Version 4.0 touts more-

eicient automated ile migration and

restoration without system downtime.

FLMs claim to ame is its ability to cre-

ate tiers o storage in Network Appli-

ance NAS environments.

These new products are all about in-

creasing eiciencies in the data center,

says Doug Ingraham, Brocades senior

director o SAN product management.

Brocade is moving away rom being

just a block-level SAN company towardtackling other issues such as data man-

agement and bringing branch oice data

back to the data center.

Improving interoperability within its

own products, moving beyond the block

level to become more o a data manage-

ment provider, and broadening its reach

in the branch oice are all important

goals that Brocade must execute in order

to remain a major player in the market,

according to Richard Villars, vice presi-

dent o storage systems research at IDC.

Delivering interoperability between

Brocade and McData products is key or

Brocade rom the standpoint o protect-

ing the customer base and reassuring them

they can deliver on their promises, but now

that they have merged the company wants

to start adding unctionality to make them

more valuable as a partner, says Villars.

Moving beyond block-level storage

Villars says Brocades attempt to move

beyond block-level storage is a direct re-action to two big trends in the storage

industry: the massive expansion o ile-

level data and the move toward virtual-

ized inrastructures via blades and vir-

tual server solutions.

Brocade wants to be a critical player in

the data center and not just a component

supplier, Villars says. There is a need to

manage ile-level data while simultane-

ously managing block-level storage and, i

you want to play in the data center, there

is going to be a big opportunity in auto-

mating and creating more-eective solu-

tions or virtualized inrastructures.Further evidence o Brocades plans

to become a key vendor in the data cen-

ter o the uture was its recent entry in-

to the Fibre Channel host bus adapter

(HBA) market via a reseller deal with LSI

(see Brocade enters HBA market via LSI,

above).


VENDORS MENTIONED

Brocade, EMC, LSI



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EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

NetBackup FROM PAGE 8

es across all major vendors, according to

Matt Fairbanks, Symantecs senior direc-tor of product marketing.

Fairbanks says the latest version of Net-

Backup is referred to internally as the

disk release due to the laundry list of

new features and support for disk-based

backup environments. This is an inte-

grated way to manage all devices and datamovers, he says.

NetBackup 6.5, which will be available

this summer, includes features such as na-

tive disk-based backup, data de-duplica-

tion, integration with intelligent back-

up appliances and VTLs, heterogeneous

snapshot management, granular recov-ery for applications and virtual machines,

and new licensing and pricing programs.

According to Fairbanks, NetBackup

6.5 provides a single approach to agents,

policy management, recovery processes,

security, backup reporting, and the data

catalog.Four new capabilities in version 6.5 are

designed to take advantage of emerging

and established disk-based data-protec-

tion technologies, including native da-

ta de-duplication that can be leveraged

across the entire NetBackup environ-

ment; native disk backup capabilities,

which enable pooling, sharing, and back-

up over a SAN to shared disk; integration

with disk-based backup appliances and

VTLs; and heterogeneous snapshots and

CDP management.

With the softwares PureDisk Dedupli-

cation Option, NetBackup 6.5 integrates

Symantecs PureDisk de-dupe technolo-

gy into the core of NetBackup to ensure

redundant backup information is only

stored once across the backup environ-

ment. In addition, the new Flexible Disk

Option enables backup administrators

to perform high-speed SAN backup to a

shared disk pool.

The Virtual Tape Option enhances the

performance and manageability of virtu-

al tape devices by copying data directly

from the VTL to tape, using a process

that is controlled by NetBackup in a cata-

log-consistent manner.

In response to the growing populari-ty of virtual machines, Symantec added

support for consolidated backup, granular

file-level and image-level recovery, and de-

duplication for VMware environments.

NetBackup leverages VMware Consoli-

dated Backup (VCB) to guarantee con-

sistency and remove the backup from the

primary VMware server. VMware back-

ups can be performed to tape or disk and

can leverage the PureDisk Deduplica-

tion Option for de-dupe and replication

of VMware backups.

NetBackup 6.5 also offers database

and document-level recovery from thesame backup for Microsoft SharePoint,

eliminating the need for multiple back-

ups of the same system. For Exchange

environments, NetBackup provides an

instant-recovery feature that enables

administrators to recover from a disk-

based snapshot.

Symantecs focus on disk-based backup

in NetBackup 6.5 is well-timed. In Inter-

national Data Corp.s (IDC) recent Disk-

Based Data Protection Study, the research



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NEWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

firm asked IT professionals how much of

their current disk storage exists to hold

copies for data protection, backup, and

recovery. On average, firms said that 35%of their disk capacity was for data protec-

tion, backup, and recovery.

Laura DuBois, IDCs research direc-

tor for storage software, says that num-

ber is likely to rise. In three years, we

expect this to grow to an average of 40%.

NetBackup 6.5s focus on disk is consis-

tent with customer demand and provides

flexibility in selecting the manner of disk-

based protection that is most suitable for

users environments.

Dubois says the integration of existing

NetBackup configurations with the new

NetBackup PureDisk configuration is a

key piece of the software. This enables de-

duplication, use of any type of disk storage,

and replication to a remote disaster-recov-

ery site without tape, she says.

Another area of change for the latest

version of NetBackup is its pricing. Sy-

mantecs research shows a growing cus-

tomer interest in aligning their purchas-

ing model for data-protection software

with their approach to storage hardware

procurement. In response, Symantec is

offering a capacity-based pricing option

for NetBackup 6.5.

Customers now have the choice of li-

censing NetBackup based on the totalamount of data being protected, or they

can continue to use the traditional per-

server pricing model. In addition, custom-

ers that stick with traditional server-based

pricing will be offered a simplified pricing

structure under which dozens of clients,

agents, and modules are now grouped in-

to three options.

Whether customers take to the new

pricing model remains to be seen. The

challenge with pricing is that no mat-

ter how you offer it, some users want it

one way, and others [want it] another

way. Well have to wait and see what us-ers think about this, but Ive heard some

positive responses, says DuBois.

The launch of NetBackup 6.5 is the

first step on the path to a new strategy

for Symantec. The company simultane-

ously announced Storage United, an ini-

tiative designed to minimize the cost and

complexity of managing storage. Storage

United provides a software-oriented ap-

proach to help heterogeneous data-center

environments deliver storage as a service

by uniting disparate resources.

The main aim of the initiative is to

provide a layer of data protection, stor-

age management, and archiving soft-ware that supports all major server and

storage systems.

Symantecs Fairbanks claims that, be-

cause Symantec has no hardware agenda,

customers have more choices, flexibility,

and control over their storage and server

architectures and hardware purchases.The storage management problem is

connected to the platform management

problem, which is connected to adminis-

tration and business problems. Right now,

all of these different platforms have dif-

ferent management utilities, says Fair-

banks. Theres a gap between what thebusiness needs and what IT is providing.

Its time to align everything to deliver

storage as a service.



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EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

Israeli start-up Continuity Software hasset up shop in the U.S. and is making its

disaster-recovery management software

available to North American customers.

The product, dubbed RecoverGuard, of-

fers end users visibility into remote recovery

operations by detecting infrastructure gaps

and configuration vulnerabilities between

primary data centers and disaster-recovery

sites. The main aim of RecoverGuard is to

validate disaster-recovery implementations

which, according to company officials, fail

at an alarming rate.

Disaster recovery doesnt work, says Gil

Hecht, Continuity Softwares founder and

CEO. Every time a change is made in the

production environment it must be im-

plemented in a similar way in the disaster-

recovery environment. There are hundreds

and thousands of changes being made with-

out users having the ability to test them.

The chances of it working are slim.

That, says Hecht, is where Continuity

Software can help. RecoverGuard can

identify problems or gaps between produc-tion and disaster-recovery environments.

When something gets out of sync, it imme-

diately notifies the administrator, he says.

RecoverGuard monitors and detects

configuration errors, infrastructure

changes, and vulnerabilities in real time

in order to eliminate the risk of data loss

or corruption in the event of a disaster.

The software ensures all production con-

figuration changes are successfully ap-

plied to the remote hot site.

Continuity offers RecoverGuard in a

number of different ways, including a No-

Risk Assessment, which offers custom-

ers the opportunity to deploy Recover-

Guard on up to 30 servers, for 48 hours.

At the end of the 48 hours, the customer

receives a report that details the complete

topology of the data center and disaster-

recovery environment, a description of

the risks and threats to the production

and disaster-recovery environments, a list

of ways to optimize certain aspects of the

environment, and an SLA analysis.The 48-hour assessment costs $15,000

for up to 30 servers, while the software

is also available for an annual license of

$2,000 per server.

RecoverGuard is agent-less and sup-

ports EMC Symmetrix, Clariion, SRDF,

and TimeFinder, as well as Network Ap-

pliances Data OnTap platforms. The soft-

ware also supports all major database and

cluster environments, as well as Windows,

HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, and Linux operat-

ing systems.

Bob Laliberte, an analyst with the En-

terprise Strategy Group (ESG), says a

very high percentage of disaster-recovery

implementations have some kind of prob-

lem. Take a disaster-recovery environ-

ment that is put in place today and tested.

Typically it will work. Now fast-forward

three months: How many moves, addi-

tions, and changes have been made in

that production environment over three

months? he says. Clearly, companies

dont have time to do a disaster-recovery

regression test after each change; its just

not feasible.Laliberte says most companies test

their disaster-recovery systems every six

to twelve months, while other compa-

nies test more f requently. In most cases,

they fail, and the company corrects those

failures only to have different ones affect

them six months later, he says.

Laliberte believes there is a critical need

for disaster-recovery testing systems. Why

wouldnt you invest in a system to monitor

your multi-million dollar disaster-recovery

environment that your business depends

on? At least that way when you come in to

work and see the light on, you can fix the

problem immediately, instead of waiting for

the next disaster-recovery test, he says.

ESG estimates that remote recovery

operations currently fail at a rate of 40%

to 60%.

Continuity Software tackles DR testing

appliance-based versions of the archiving

platform at various capacity points for

customers who want a turnkey product,

but there is also the HCAP-DL (diskless)version, which supports all of Hitachis

storage systems, including the USP V,

USP (formerly branded as TagmaStore),

Network Storage Controller, Adaptable

Modular Storage systems, and Workgroup

Modular Storage arrays.

The salient point here is that Hitachi is

divorcing the concept of what the software

does from the whole hardware stack, says

John Webster, principal IT advisor with

the Illuminata research and consulting

firm. That makes the HCAP much more

appealing to customers because now they

can potentially take legacy storage devicesand include them under the umbrella.

However, Webster admits, to add leg-

acy or commodity storage to the virtual

pool, end users have to put a USP V in be-

tween the HCAP-DL and the arrays. But

for USP V customers, thats great, he says.

Now they have a number of different ways

to [implement the archiving platform].

Pricing for different models of the HCAP

varies considerably based on the storage

platform being used on the back-end, but,

for example, an entry-level 5TB HCAP

system is priced at approximately $70,000.

In an effort to limit the need for proprie-

tary APIs, the HCAP uses standards-based

interfaces such as NFS, CIFS, Web-basedDistributed Authoring and Versioning

(WebDAV), and HTTP as well as storage

management standards such as the Stor-

age Management Initiative Specification

(SMI-S) to integrate content-producing

applications into the archive.

Hitachi also introduced a new encryp-

tion solution referred to as Secret Shar-

ing. The patent-pending technology al-

lows users to store their security key within

the HCAP and share that key across mul-

tiple nodes within the archive.

As content comes into the system we

protect it with standard AES encryption,but the differentiator is our distributed

key management system based on our

Secret Sharing technology, says Zaheer.

Rather than having a single key in a sin-

gle location we distribute pieces of the key

across the environment. Users need all of

the pieces of that key in order to gain ac-

cess to and decrypt the data.

Secret Sharing ensures only a fully op-

erational system with all of its nodes con-

nected to the archive will be able to de-

crypt the content, metadata, and search

index. Zaheer says if a server or storage

device is stolen or removed from the clus-

ter, the device would be automatically en-

crypted and immediately unreadable byany other device.

Hitachi has thrown data de-duplication

into the mix to eliminate storing redun-

dant data in the archive. Zaheer claims

Hitachis approach to data de-duplication

is collision-proof, in that it performs

both hash comparisons and binary com-

parisons to ensure objects are actual du-

plicates, therefore avoiding hash colli-

sions where different objects could have

the same cryptographic hash key. Most

de-duplication methods use a hash key to

compare hash values between files, but it

is sometimes possible to have the samehash key for different files. We perform

a binary comparison before we collapse a

file and reclaim the capacity, he says.

Hitachis archiving system comprises

homegrown HDS hardware and software

and technology the company acquired

through the purchase of digital archiving

start-up Archivas last February.

Archivas software, Archivas Cluster

(ArC), simultaneously indexes metadata

and content as files are written to the ar-

chive, with the built-in ability to extract

text and metadata from 370 file formats.

ArC also provides event-based updat-

ing of the full text and metadata index as

retention status changes or as files are de-

leted. The ArC software is what enables

HCAP to scale to 80 nodes, support a

single global namespace with more than

2PB of capacity, and manage more than

two-billion files.

Hitachi FROM PAGE 8 HDS teams with Bus-TechHitachi Data Systems and Bus-Tech have

jointly announced the availabilit y of Hita-

chis Content Archive Platform with Bus-

Techs Mainframe Data Library (MDL) and

Mainframe Appliance for Storage (MAS)products, resulting in a digital archiving

system for mainframes.

Bus-Techs MDL and MAS are tape-on-

disk appliances that attach directly to

zSeries mainframes via FICON or ESCON

I/O channels, and to disk storage systems

via Gigabit Ethernet or Fibre Channel. To

the mainframe, the tape-on-disk appli-

ances emulate up to 1,024 (MDL) or 256

(MAS) 3480/3490/3590 tape drives, allow-

ing mainframe-based applications to store

tape data on Hitachis Content Archive

Platform by writing sequential files to disk

as if they were standard tape devices.

The MDL and MAS attach to the Content

Archive Platform via the HTTP protocol.

VENDORS MENTIONED

Continuity Software, EMC, NetApp



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EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

HBA market, says Arun Taneja, founder

of the Taneja Group consulting firm.

Buiocchi says that Brocades distri-bution strategy for its HBAs will be the

same as it is for its switches: large OEMs

(which could potentially include EMC,

HBA market FROM PAGE 10 IBM, and Hewlett-Packard), and thechannel (VARs and integrators). Ap-

proximately 85% of Brocades switches go

through OEMs, while 15% go throughthe channel. In addition, Brocade will

offer the HBAs via its Website.

Brian Garrett, an analyst with the En-

terprise Strategy Group, notes that Bro-

cades HBA play is significant not in its

short-term implications but, rather, in its

long-term ramifications. Besides the po-tential for improved pricing and a reduc-

tion in the number of vendors that cus-

tomers have to deal with, Brocade could

bring a lot to the party over time, says

Garrett. Having a footprint at the server

end of the wire in the form of Fibre Chan-

nel HBAs, along with an existing foot-print within the fabric, provides Brocade

with an end-to-end platform for the deliv-

ery of intelligent services running in the

storage network, including online migra-

tion, virtualization, and replication. The

intelligent ASIC technology that Brocade

has honed over the years at the port level

within switches can be re-purposed at the

server end of the wire within HBAs.

With that said, Garrrett continues,

Brocade has a new challenge ahead as they

start supporting the server end of the wire.

Supporting HBA drivers is a pain for end

users and vendors alike. Brocade needs to

invest in a new level of infrastructure, ex-

pertise, and support services to help cus-

tomers deal with the qualification, support,

and upgrade of HBA driver software.

Richard Villars, vice president of stor-

age systems research at International

Data Corp. (IDC), agrees that Brocades

move goes far beyond just duking it out

in the HBA space. If Brocade were just

getting into the HBA market they would

be facing a rough road, but what theyre

really trying to do is take advantage of

the emerging opportunity created by the

move toward bladed architectures and the

explosion of virtual servers, says Villars.They see a confluence of things such as

bladed architectures, virtual servers, and

a shift toward high-speed interconnects

like 10GbE and 8Gbps Fibre Channel.

For Brocade to be competitive they need

to be able to play in the architectures be-

ing built for those environments.

In addition to Fibre Channel HBAs,

Brocade last month began shipments of

iSCSI HBAs based on technology gained

in the companys acquisition of Silverback

Systems last year. The model 2110 iSCSI

HBA initiators are compatible with Win-

dows and Linux platforms.Brocade also outlined plans for next-

generation Intelligent Server Adapters,

which company officials say will integrate

HBA technology with SAN switching

technology. Those products will include

8Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs and 10Gbps

Ethernet adapters and will be available

next year.

VENDORS MENTIONED

Brocade, Cisco, EMC, Emulex, Hewlett-

Packard, IBM, LSI, QLogic



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*Microsofts Volume Shadow Copy Services. Microsoft, Windows, and the Windows Logo are

trademarks or registered trademarks ofMicrosoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

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NEWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

iSCSI FROM COVERity and costs associated with shared

storage;

Facilitating virtual machine (VM)mobility, which is one of the key

value propositions of server virtual-

ization; and

Improving data protection, such as

backups and disaster recovery.

In many cases, iSCSI provides a supe-

rior fabric for server virtualization com-

pared to Fibre Channel, not just a cheap-

er one, says Baker.

Praveen Asthana, Dells marketing di-

rector, takes it one step further: Server

virtualization is a killer app for iSCSI.

Reduced complexity

iSCSIs ability to reduce the complexity

and costs associated with SANs is not an

advantage thats specific to virtual server

environments. But reduced complexity is

particularly important in virtual server en-

vironments because it feeds into the value

proposition of consolidation and simpli-

fied management. In addition, many small

and medium-sized companies embarking

on server virtualization do not have Fibre

Channel expertise, nor do they have in-

stalled Fibre Channel SANs.

In addition to reduced complexity,

iSCSI lowers the entry costs for sharedstorage in virtualized environments be-

cause its based on Ethernet, and com-

panies can leverage less-expensive (com-

pared to Fibre Channel) equipment and

existing skills.

VM mobility

With a shared-storage SAN on the back-

end of a virtual server environment, if

one server goes down, the guest operat-

ing system (OS) and applications will

transfer to another physical server auto-

matically, usually without any disruption

noticeable to users. This mobility of vir-tual machines and their applications is a

key benefit of server virtualization, and

SANs are required for mobility.

VM mobility also provides the ability

to move workloads around to dynami-

cally level out (load-balance) resources,

providing applications with more horse-

power on-demand.

With direct-attached storage (DAS), in

contrast, if a VM fails or becomes over-

loaded, administrators have to manual-

ly migrate virtual machines and applica-

tions. SANs facilitate mobility, and iSCSI

may provide some mobility advantages

compared to Fibre Channel that are,again, related to complexity.

Fibre Channel is a very physically ori-

ented protocol, explains Dells Baker.

WWNs are like MAC addresses: Theyre

burned into the hardware [e.g., host bus

adapters]. There is no logical equivalent

of WWNs that you can give to a virtualmachine, which means you have to cre-

ate relationships upon relationships be-

tween storage and virtual platforms, and

then you have to again allocate storage

from the hypervisor up to the VMs.

As such, using Fibre Channel in a vir-

tual server environment increases thenumber of touch points (manual con-

figuration steps) required to manage your

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EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

iSCSI FROM PAGE 17

BY KEVIN KOMIEGA

Start-up Pivot3 recently made its pres-ence known with a new approach toward

cost-eective network storage.

Pivot3 has come up with a way to use

o-the-shel components and a parallel-

ized I/O architecture to provide an IP-

based storage cluster that can potential-

ly deliver up to 5x the perormance at hal

o the cost o some competing solutions,

according to company claims.

The companys initial oering, dubbed

the RAIGE (RAID Across Independent

Gigabit Ethernet) Storage Cluster, is

an iSCSI implementation o the Pivot3

block-level inrastructure virtualization

architecture that provides a virtual dis-

tributed RAID implementation.

Je Bell, vice president o marketing

or Pivot3, says the RAIGE Storage Clus-

ter, which is designed or both Windows

and Linux environments, breaks the per-

ormance and capacity limits o physical

RAID devices by using block-level vir-

tualization and eliminating the need or

specialized RAID hardware and storagecontrollers.

We designed the system without any

RAID or storage controllers, which pro-

vides a better way to do RAID data

protection in a clustered environment,

says Bell. Every client has direct access

to the back-end storage nodes, nothing

has to unnel through a controller, and

the system gets aster as you build out

your inrastructure.

Data protection is supported across

multiple networked storage nodes, called

Databanks, which are built using standard

x86 servers and disk drives and are con-

nected via Gigabit Ethernet. Databank

nodes can be added to scale capacity to

hundreds o terabytes. Each node adds

processing power, cache, and network

ports, contributing to the overall peror-

mance. Each node contains 12 500GB

or 750GB drives or a raw capacity o

up to 9TB.

Drives and Databanks o any size can

be added non-disruptively and, unlikeDAS or server-based storage, Pivot3 stor-

age can be virtually assigned when and

where it is required, without the need or

re-cabling. Databanks are automatically

discovered and can be assigned to a new

virtual array or added to an existing vir-

tual array.

Bell claims data recovery times are

5x to 10x aster with system-wide par-

allel processing and a proprietary algo-

rithm that optimizes the rebuild process.

RAIGE supports on-the-ly conigura-

tion changes, and data is continuously

available through volume provisioning

changes.

Pivot3 is initially targeting its RAIGE

Storage Cluster product at the digital vid-

eo surveillance market, which requires

scalable, high-perormance, low-cost

storage systems, according to Bell.

A 6TB Databank node is priced at

$17,499.

Start-up offers IP storage clustersstorage, and transerring rom a virtual

environment to a physical machine over

Fibre Channel can require extensive mi-gration planning and reconiguration,

according to Baker.

Also, to acilitate VM mobility, ab-

ric zoning and masking must be opened

up, so that each virtual server has ac-

cess to storage. To the guest operating

systems, the provisioned storage looks as

i it is directly connected, but the guest

OS does not have a direct relationship

to the storage.

Initiatives such as N_Port ID Virtual-

ization (NPIV), which allows multiple Fi-

bre Channel initiators to share a single

physical port with multiple WWNs, may

help simpliy the coniguration and man-

agement o Fibre Channel SANs in virtu-

alized environments. However, NPIV can

add abric complexity and cost.

In contrast, Baker argues, iSCSI is very

logically (as opposed to physically) orient-

ed (see igure, p. 19). It runs on top o Eth-

ernet, IP, and TCP, which gives users the



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Source: Dell

Application layer

FC initiator

Presentation layer

Session layer

Transport layer

Network layer

Datalink layer

Physical layer

Application layer

FC target

Presentation layer

Session layer

Transport layer

Network layer

Datalink layer

Physical layer

Application layer

iSCSI initiator

Presentation layer

iSCSI protocol

Session layer

Transport layer

Network layer

Datalink layer

Physical layer

Application layer

Presentation layer

iSCSI protocol

Session layer

Transport layer

Network layer

Datalink layer

Physical layer

FC target

iSCSI alleviates complexity

FC model: Extensive hypervisor configuration

Fabric management required

Arbitrated storage only

Physical/ HW controlFC switch

FC relationship FC relationship

iSCSI model: Limited hypervisor configuration

Minimal network management required

Storage Direct or arbitrated

Logical/VM controlled

Ethernet/IP network

iSCSI relationship

Source: Dell

VMDK repository VM1 app data

VM guest 1

IQN 1

IQN

VM guest 1

IQN 1

IQN

iSCSI facilitates VM mobility

Physicalserver 1

StandardNICs

Physicalserver 2

StandardNICs

Ethernet switch

Server/storagerelationship

Guest OS: Direct relationship via IQNHypervisor: Direct relationship via IQN

Guest OS: Arbitrated relationshipHypervisor: Direct relationship via WWN

iSCSI FC

VM mobility VMs identity (IQN name) transfers seamlessly VM mobility requires hypervisor arbitration

VM mobility using iSCSI Storage Direct

NEWSANALYSIS+TRENDS


ability to abstract away rom the hardware

and deal with the storage coniguration

in a more logical way. For example, us-

ers can create a logical one-to-one rela-tionship among VMs, applications, and

storage; this is in contrast to the multi-

ple touch points that you have to deal

with in the case o Fibre Channel. And

iSCSI initiators are agnostic to low-er-level (physical) layers, allowing a di-

rect relationship between a guest opera-

tion systems sotware initiator and the

storage resources. As such, provisioning

storage through the VM hypervisor layer

(e.g., via ESX) is no longer necessary.

The IQN [iSCSI Qualiied Name,

or identiier] is tied directly to the VM,

which simpliies things by reducing the

complexity o the relationship among a

VM, its applications, and storage, says

Baker. iSCSI makes it easier to conig-

ure the virtual environment.

Dell reers to the ability to access stor-

age directly rom a VM without interer-

ence rom the underlying VM as Storage

Direct (see igure, above).

Baker rounds out the case or iSCSI

with comments on potential beneits o

data protection:



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EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

iSCSI FROM PAGE 19 With iSCSI, you can perorm direct

backups to tape or disk rom a guest

OS (virtual machine). With FibreChannel, in contrast, backups have

to be managed and arbitrated in the

VM hypervisor (e.g., via ESX in the

case o VMware).

With iSCSI, backups (and other stor-

age management applications) are di-

rectly managed in the guest OS, withdirect access to storage and ull ap-

plication unctionality. With Fibre

Channel, backups are managed by the

guest OS and hypervisor, which arbi-

trate access to storage and control the

relationship with the external disk ar-

ray. This approach can also limit theunctionality o the applications. In

an iSCSI implementation, integra-

tion with VSS/VDS can be ported

over directly rom existing backup

methodologies. This is not possible

with the indirect relationship re-

quired with Fibre Channel, accord-ing to Baker. Utilization o existing

backup scripts and methodologies is

money in the bank or IT adminis-

trators, he says. Moreover, you can

achieve much iner grained backup

capabilities.

With iSCSI, images and applications

developed on guest operating systems

can be migrated to a non-virtualized

(physical) server seamlessly. Migrat-

ing rom virtual to physical machines

via Fibre Channel can require sig-

niicant reconiguration by adminis-

trators and comes with the risk that

administrator errors will cause ap-

plication-level problems. The same

holds true with physical-to-virtual

and virtual-to-virtual migrations.

Nevertheless, Fibre Channel still has

two advantages: Its more mature and,

in almost all cases (or at least until

10Gbps iSCSI takes o), Fibre Channel

provides better perormance. However,

in the majority o virtual server appli-

cations, iSCSI SANs may provide su-

icient perormance.

Chris Poelker, vice president o enter-

prise solutions at FalconStor Sotware,cites many o the same beneits o iSCSI

in virtual server environments as does

Dells Baker, most notably in the areas

o lower cost, simplicity, disaster recov-

ery, and direct storage connections to

virtual machines. But Poelker adds that

perormance is actually another place

where iSCSI can shine, citing not only

the advent o 10Gbps Ethernet, but also

IniniBand.

In larger organizations we see a migra-

tion toward leveraging iSCSI as a pro-

tocol over IniniBand, which runs at

20Gbps, to provide RDMA access todisk, says Poelker.

So in a virtualized, large-scale

grid environment using a single In-

iniBand connection, you can run Fi-

bre Channel, Ethernet, and iSCSI

RDMA, which allows you to transer to

disk at 20Gbps. Although iSCSI was

originally pushed to the back burner or

perormance reasons, its now being used

or higher-perormance applications,

adds Poelker.



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NEWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

BUSINESS BRIEFS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

iStor Networks and Fujitsu Ltd. haveteamed up to demonstrate peror-

mance o 1,046MBps and 85,786 IOPS

in a 10GbE iSCSI coniguration. The

demo included Fujitsus Primequest

servers, iStors GigaStor ATX target

subsystems, 10Gbps Ethernet adapters

rom Neterion, and i316-A1 disk arrays

rom Asustek. Hitachi High-Technol-

ogies (HHT) also participated in the

demonstration.

Designed in collaboration with Da-

ta Direct Networks (DDN), IBM has

announced the DCS9550 disk sys-

tem or high-perormance computing

(HPC) environments. The DCS9550

scales up to 96TB with Fibre Channel

disk drives or up to 160TB with SATA

drives. The companies claim through-

put o up to 3GBps on both read-and-

write operations in ull-duplex host

transers. The SAN array also eatures

RAID 6 or protection against the si-

multaneous ailure o two drives in the

same redundancy group.

Storewiz has closed a $9 million

round o unding with venture capital

irm Sequoia Capital.

Exanet has secured $18 million in

its recent round o inancing. Exanetscurrent investors include Evergreen

Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Mi-

crodent, Kodak, CSK Fund (Hitachi),

Dr. Giora Yaron, and others. The lat-

est round o unding was led by Cor-

al Capital Management and includ-

ed QVT Fund LP as well as existing

investors.

Emulexs HBAnyware is now avail-

able or use in Sun Microsystems

SAN Foundation Sotware, which Sun

developed or the Solaris OS.

ExaGrid Systems has expanded

the availability o the ExaGrid Disk-based Backup System through several

new distributor and VAR relationships.

Promark Technology, Synegi, USI

Corp., and Voyant Strategies are

among the latest companies to join

the ExaGrid Reseller Partner

Program.

Brocade announced the availabil-

ity o Brocade Access Gateway or

IBM BladeCenter solutions.

Power FROM COVERSome vendors are doing just that. Co-

pan Systems, or example, bases all o its

virtual tape library (VTL) and archivingsystems on a massive array o idle disks

(MAID) architecture. MAID technology

operates on the basic premise that not all

disks need to be spinning all o the time.

Only disks containing data being request-

ed by applications need to be powered on,

and they are turned o when not in use.In the case o Copan, only a maximum

o 25% o the drives in a system are pow-

ered on at any one time. This approach

may be a it or storing long-term, inre-

quently accessed data, but is less practical

or primary storage.

Another approach is more-eicient ca-pacity provisioning. So-called thin-provi-

sioning technologies have been around

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INFOSTOR www.infostor.com J UL Y 20072 2

EWSANALYSIS+TRENDS

Power FROM PAGE 21or several years and, according to Web-

ster, can improve disk utilization rates

rom 30% to 40%, to 60% or greater.Thin provisioning lets users allocate

just enough storage to applications, there-

by reducing overall capacity requirements

and associated power and cooling costs.

Vendors such as 3PAR Data, Compellent,

EqualLogic, LetHand Networks, Net-

work Appliance and, most recently, Hi-

tachi with its new USP V high-end array

all oer thin provisioning in some orm.

There are still more data-management

techniques that can be applied to reduce

overall capacity, such as data compression,

de-duplication, tiering, and archiving,

which all add up to energy savings.

Eventually, however, users will need to

buy more storage no matter how much sot-

ware they throw at the capacity problem.

A lot o hardware vendors are inally

waking up to the reality that they have

to tackle the power-consumption prob-

lem, but it looks like some o the promises

they are making are still a ways out, says

Seth Sladek, a senior systems engineer at

Cambridge Health Alliance.

Sladek manages storage on a daily ba-

sis and is constantly looking or ways to

streamline his operation.

Were looking at archiving technolo-

gies to get data that isnt being accessedregularly o o spinning disks, says

Sladek. Id like to see more energy-ei-

cient drives. Todays drives are certainly

more-eicient than the 500GB drives o

old that were two eet in diameter, but I

think drive makers have just scratched

the surace in that respect, he says.

But Sladek says he is not completely

willing to sacriice perormance or a low-

er electric bill. Im wary o the peror-

mance trade-o. Hopeully, drives will

continue to improve in perormance,

but at the same time become more en-

ergy-eicient. Its a double-edged sword,he adds.

Drive manuacturers are conscious

o their role in the power consumption

conundrum.

The amount o power consumption

attributed to drives is relatively insig-

niicant in small numbers, but when you

move into the data center and take an

average o 8 watts per drive and multiply

it by hundreds o thousands youre talk-

ing megawatts, says Willis Whittington,

senior product marketing manager or

Seagates Enterprise Compute Business.

However, Whittington says there is a

delicate balance between saving powerat the drive level and providing the per-

ormance and capacity points users have

come to expect.

We can save power, but its at the ex-

pense o something else, and that some-

thing is usually perormance, whether it

be seek times, latency, or throughput,

says Whittington. We could say to cus-

tomers, We can save you 20% on your

electric bill i you let us take 10% o the

perormance o the drives. But users want

more perormance.

Seagate has begun its own work on the

power problem with the announcement

o what the company calls PowerTrim

Energy Eiciency, which is a set o ea-

tures that together reduce the overall

power consumption o its hard drives(see Seagate unveils power-conscious

10K drive, above).

Whittington claims PowerTrim helps

energy-constrained data centers maxi-

mize eiciency with power consumption

rated as low as 8 watts. The result is a

drive that delivers a 34% reduction o

power in idle mode, as well as a 33% re-

duction in operating power.

The Cheetah NSthe irst Seagate

drive to use PowerTrimis a 10,000rpm

hard drive based on the same platorm

as the speedier 15,000rpm Cheetah 15K.5.

The Cheetah NS oers 400GB o capac-

ity with lower power and cooling require-ments than the 15K.5. The trade-o, o

course, is a perormance hit.

There is no low-hanging ruit available

when it comes to saving on energy costs,

but there are a lot o little things that can

be done. It has to be a holistic approach,

says Whittington.

Whittington notes that more-eicient

power supplies and tighter integration be-

tween system workloads and drives could

also yield power savings. I we had bet-

ter cooperation between the system and

the drive and get power supply eiciency

up over 80%, we could save more pow-

er, he says.

Data growth ultimately translates into

the need or more power. Its the unstop-

pable orce versus the immovable object.Something has to give.

St

IFS_20070701_Jul_2007

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