Storage Mag Online April 2013 v 3

8/13/2019 Storage Mag Online April 2013 v 3

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Managing the information that drives the enterprise

STORAGE

APRIL 2013

VOL. 12 |NO. 2

TAP INTOCLOUD BACKUPWITHOUT FEAR

KEEP TABSON DISK USAGE

CASTAGNA:STORAGE TECH ISCHANGING (FINALLY!)

TOIGO:OPEN SYSTEMS STYMIESTORAGE MANAGEMENT

BUFFINGTON:TAPE MEETS THE CLOUD

TANEJA:

DATA DEDUPES EVOLUTION

SNAPSHOT:BACKUP ISNT AS HARDAS IT USED TO BE

Unchecked data growth, server virtualization

and the need for more speed are new demands thattraditional storage systems may not be able to meet.

IS YOUR..STORAGE ARRAY.

.OBSOLETE?.


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3 STORAGE n APRIL 2013

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OPEN SYSTEMSSTYMIE STORAGE

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TAPE MEETS THE CLOUD

DATA DEDUPESEVOLUTION

BACKUP ISNT AS HARDAS IT USED TO BE

seems to be following a similar arc. The marketplace

grew up fast and was populated with a slew of products

in a variety of form factors, but four or five years into this

surge our surveys show that two-thirds of users havent

implemented any solid-state storage.

Dedupe and solid-state are pretty disruptive technolo-

gies, and if they cant ratchet up the data storage indus-

trys typically slow evolution, nothing can. Maybe werejust expecting too much change too soon. Or perhaps

were looking at the wrong indicators of change.

Take, for example, some recent end-of-the-year re-

ports that indicate hard disk drive (HDD) sales are down

and will continue to drop this year. One report says HDD

sales dipped by 7% in 2012, while another predicts ap-

proximately a 12% drop in HDD revenues in 2013. That

seems strange given the spiraling growth of data and how

Storage techs new evolutionStorage technology may not seem to be moving very quickly when measuredby old criteria. But a new perspective shows its actually developing quite briskly.

EDITORIAL |RICH CASTAGNA

IT MAY SOMETIMES seem that you need a seismic instru-

ment to detect the subtle shifting of storage tech-

nologies. A faint tremor might indicate that the data

storage industry is heaving slightly in a new direc-

tion, but only at the glacial pace were accustomed to.

New storage techs may burst on the scenelike

dedupe about a decade ago, or solid-state over the last few

yearsbut then they ease into a fairly leisurely pace ofadoption. Its like enjoying a big, glitzy opening night and

then waiting a couple of weeks, months or years until the

next performance.

Deduplication is a case in point; while its arguably

a mature technology and it practically monopolized the

attention of the storage market for years, our research

shows that more than 60% of companies arent using

dedupe in their backup operations. Solid-state storage
http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Implementation-choices-for-solid-state-storage-deviceshttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/2240177767/Report-HDD-market-dominance-holds-even-as-revenue-to-drop-in-2013http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/Best-data-storage-products-2012-Products-of-the-Yearhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/Best-data-storage-products-2012-Products-of-the-Yearhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/feature/Using-data-deduplication-with-backup-applications-Source-vs-target-dedupehttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/feature/Using-data-deduplication-with-backup-applications-Source-vs-target-dedupehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/Best-data-storage-products-2012-Products-of-the-Yearhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/Best-data-storage-products-2012-Products-of-the-Yearhttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/2240177767/Report-HDD-market-dominance-holds-even-as-revenue-to-drop-in-2013http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Implementation-choices-for-solid-state-storage-devices


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theyre using their installed capacity these days. In last

falls survey, 47% of respondents said they now use thinprovisioningto help them avoid squandering disk space.

Thats nine percentage points higher than just a year be-

fore. If you look at the newer efficiency techs, the up-

take there is just as impressive: 31% have tiered their

storage, while 29% and 27%, respectively, have imple-

mented primary storage dedupe or compression.

With all these efficiency tools in place, data storage

managers are using only 54% of their installed storage

capacityaccording to another survey we fielded recently.No wonder hard disk sales are sinking. With effec-

tive belt-tightening it looks like a lot of companies have

plenty of room to grow so theyre purchasing less (if any)

new disk capacity. And if they do need something speed-

ier and more up to date than what they have, a little solid-

state storage and some caching or tiering software can

handle new performance demandswithout having to re-

place or radically rework existing systems.

So the storage industrymay actually be advancing at afairly lively clip, once you consider the drastic and lasting

impact of economic forces and the resulting pressures on

corporate IT teams. Storage managers appear to be adjust-

ing well and actually setting the agenda for storage tech-

nology development. I hope the vendors are listening. n

RICH CASTAGNAis editorial director of TechTargets Storage MediaGroup.

EDITORIAL |RICH CASTAGNA

the big data mania is causing companies to hoard more

data than ever before.Still another industry report tells us that the number

of solid-state devices shipped in 2012 grew by 129% and

speculates that the growth of solid-state drives (SSDs)

will continue in 2013 at 113%. That means twice as many

solid-state units were shipped last year versus 2011, and

by the end of 2013 that number will double again. Is that

why hard disk sales are flagging?

Maybe not. A lot of that solid-state is going to places

HDDs have never been and never will be, such as inphones and tablets. And given the premium price of solid-

state, you have to assume that replacing hard disks with

SSDs is still a performance maneuvereven with new

relatively high-capacity SSDs, solid-state isnt about to

be used for bulk storage.

So the rise of solid-state is pretty straightforward;

its gaining more converts as its price dips and reliabil-

ity rises. But if thats not the main reason why fewer hard

disks are being sold, there have to be other factors at work.Those other factors are the lessons we all learned

when the economy headed south and storage budgets

contracted, namely that we had to manage storage better

and gain greater efficiencies. We had to make better use

of the storage we already had andhopefullybuy less

new stuff. Hence the decline in disk sales.

Our Purchasing Intentions surveyoffers some proof

that storage pros are paying a lot more attention to how
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Storage-thin-provisioning-benefits-and-challengeshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Storage-thin-provisioning-benefits-and-challengeshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/Tiered-storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/Tiered-storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Storage-performance-monitoring-for-virtual-servers-takes-app-approachhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240175352/Storage-2012-news-Flash-takes-over-cloud-spreadsmailto:rcastagna%40storagemagazine.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-budget-picture-brightenshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-budget-picture-brightensmailto:rcastagna%40storagemagazine.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240175352/Storage-2012-news-Flash-takes-over-cloud-spreadshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Storage-performance-monitoring-for-virtual-servers-takes-app-approachhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/Tiered-storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/Tiered-storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Storage-thin-provisioning-benefits-and-challengeshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Storage-thin-provisioning-benefits-and-challenges


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STORAGE REVOLUTION | JON TOIGO

Not-so-open systemsstymie storage managementWith few standards and little inclination to give up their proprietary ways,storage vendors make managing storage tougher than it should be.

LAST MONTH Italked about the present situa-

tion in storage infrastructure management

using a term derived from ancient Greek:

anarchy. Anarchy is a convenient catchall

for the challenges that have existed since

firms began abandoning mainframe computing, with its

centralized approach to managing storage and data assets,

for a more decentralized model.While unseating IBM as the reigning IT monarch may

have sounded like a revolutionary idea, the rhetoric of the

open systems movement never really panned out. Those

who bought into the idealistic Rousseau-ian world view

(hierarchical order corrupts) forgot to read their French

history and Hugo and Dickens novels. Revolutions tend to

eat their own and generally produce a lot of unintended

consequences.

Following the open systems revolution, things quickly

got pretty oligarchic, or downright anarchical, as IBM ri-

vals swarmed into the void left by a retreating Big Blue.

Taking a page (and paraphrasing) from Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan, the self-interest of each storage array vendor

led it to seek a stick big enough to raise over the heads of

all the others, making life in the process nasty, brutish,

and short for many tech startups.Of course, as my bureaucratic friends like to remind

me, there were a few alliances along the way, some of

which led to de jure standards such as SCSI, Fibre Chan-

nel (FC), iSCSI and the Storage Management Initiative

Specification (SMI-S).

But even those successes (when more closely exam-

ined) illustrate the foibles of standards-making by vendor

committees. Vendors did work together from time to time
http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-Managing-data-storage-infrastructure-can-maximize-resourceshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Fibre-Channelhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/SMI-Shttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/SMI-Shttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Fibre-Channelhttp://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-Managing-data-storage-infrastructure-can-maximize-resources


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But FC didnt provide a management layer, so storage

boxes were interconnected by both serial SCSI intercon-nects (FC, iSCSI and SAS) and IP connections. The latter

were required to provide access to onboard monitoring

and configuration controls for delivery out of banden-

tirely separate from storage I/O trafficto storage admins.This bifurcated design reflected the willingness of the

industry to cooperate with SAN standards only up to the

point where it made financial sense to do so. SANs pro-

vided more connection points for serial SCSI-compatible

storage rigs, which was good for vendors. Rudimentary

SANs also provided a way for former mainframe channel

extension vendors to sell a new family of products (SAN

switches) at enormous profit.

to set some ground rules, but usually only when consum-

ers expressed a preference for open standards that insu-lated them from the quick entry and exit of vendors into

the market rather than proprietary cobbles that exposed

them to vendor lock-in.

Mostly, those standards had to do with signaling,

handshaking and plumbingnot any sort of agreed-upon

management paradigm for the ever-expanding storage in-

frastructure. Instead, each vendor sought a scheme of el-

ement management that, coincidentally, let the vendor

host other value-add services directly on its array andcharge significantly more for what was increasingly be-

coming a collection of commodity components.

Storage managementtook the form of running reports

to discern trends, obtaining current status information,

and perhaps doing some configuration and maintenance.

The approach was acceptable at first, especially to server

admins who only needed to deal with a single direct-

attached storage rig. It became a significantly more chal-

lenging modus operandiwhen the number of storage de-vices proliferated and were interconnected into FC or

iSCSI fabrics.

Note that I dont call these SANs because they

werent. A storage area network, by its earliest definition,

was supposed to have been a true network, described

like other networks using the OSI layer cake model in

which one functional layer provides common manage-

ment for all interconnected devices.

Each vendor sought a schemeof element managementthat, coincidentally, let the vendor

host other value-add servicesdirectly on its array and chargesignificantly more for what wasincreasingly becoming a collectionof commodity components.
http://searchcloudapplications.techtarget.com/definition/vendor-lock-inhttp://searchcloudapplications.techtarget.com/definition/vendor-lock-inhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/Data-Storage-Managementhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/Data-Storage-Managementhttp://searchcloudapplications.techtarget.com/definition/vendor-lock-inhttp://searchcloudapplications.techtarget.com/definition/vendor-lock-in


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that the SAN management visionhadnt been fulfilled

and they set out to do something about it by creating asoftware-based super controller that would sit over the

physical storage fabric and provide more efficient sharing

of services across all systems. By doing that, they revealed

the hardware guys secret: despite the logo on the bezel

plate, everybody was just selling a box of Seagate hard

drives. Moreover, storage virtualization advocates noted

that managing an infrastructure of heterogeneous boxes

on a one-off basis was a lot more difficult and expensive

than managing them as a centralized resource with on-demand service provisioning. A lot of money was spent to

squelch the upstarts.

At the same time, companies like Tributary Systems

were creating interesting niche management products, le-

veraging existing infrastructure to non-disruptively insert

engines of service management into the data path. Trib-

utarys Storage Director is such an appliance, performing

the role of a virtual tape library, but also brokering other

data protection services to data that companies stand up

in a disk-to-disk-to-tape architecture.

Next month, well look at how these innovations in

storage managementare becoming even more relevant in

contemporary storage infrastructure. n

JON WILLIAM TOIGOis a 30-year IT veteran, CEO and managingprincipal of Toigo Partners International, and chairman of the DataManagement Institute.

Vendor technology evangelists said SANs would

change everything by creating pools of storagethat wouldenable a more elegant and simplified management ap-

proach. But they stopped short of delivering on that

promise. Agreeing to a common interconnect was one

thing; enabling common management was quite another.

SNIAs SMI-S started out as an earnest effort to create

a grand management scheme, but it became much wa-

tered down, difficult for vendors to implement and sub-

ject to less-than-enthusiastic promotion.

Digital Equipment Corp., and later Compaq, articu-lated a real SAN strategy in 1997 with common manage-

ment built in as a feature. It was called the Enterprise

Network Storage Architecture (ENSA), but it was never

implemented. Once Hewlett-Packard got hold of Com-

paq, ENSA disappeared. In the words of a former ENSA

developer:

If we had fulfilled the ENSA vision and placed all

value-add functionality on a switch or some other device

where the functions could be shared across all spindles in

a managed way, our bosses worried that the Asian devel-

opers would swoop into our market selling rigs with ele-

ment management and lots of value-add software on their

array controllers. They would eat our lunch.

That may also explain why the box-makers worked so

hard to scare customers away from the likes of DataCore

Software, FalconStor Software and other early pioneers

of storage virtualization. Those companies recognized
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/SAN-managementhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Storage-innovation-is-moving-up-the-food-chainhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Storage-innovation-is-moving-up-the-food-chainmailto:jtoigo%40toigopartners.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/What-do-you-think-of-storage-poolinghttp://www.drunkendata.com/wp-content/CompaqENSAWhitePaper_01.pdfhttp://www.drunkendata.com/wp-content/CompaqENSAWhitePaper_01.pdfhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/What-do-you-think-of-storage-poolingmailto:jtoigo%40toigopartners.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Storage-innovation-is-moving-up-the-food-chainhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Storage-innovation-is-moving-up-the-food-chainhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/resources/SAN-management


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COVER STORY |STORAGE SYSTEMS

By Jacob Gsoedl

ARE STORAGEARRAYSOBSOLETE?Cloud storage, virtualizationand the relentless growth

of unstructured data have allcontributed to a rethinkingof the way storage ispackaged and presented.

A CHANGING COMPUTE WORLDwhere physical data cen-

ter infrastructure is yielding to virtualized systems and

clouds, and desktops and laptops are supplemented with

mobile devicesis challenging traditional computing

paradigms and reshaping everything computer related,including storage architectures. While trying to fit into a

virtual world, storage has also been tested by a relentless

deluge of unstructured data, with voracious contempo-

rary applications and services demanding more data stor-

age capacity.

The traditional SAN and NAS shared storage systems

that have become so familiar typically consist of storage

processing hardware, attached disks (or solid-state de-

vices) and proprietary storage software that delivers a set

of storage features; theyre accessed via block- and file-

based storage protocols. These systems are relatively rigid

and complex (SANs more so than NAS) and limited in

their flexibility and scalability.
http://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-choose-the-right-options-for-your-shared-storage-systemhttp://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-choose-the-right-options-for-your-shared-storage-system


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has opened a window of opportunity for new storage

architecturesand vendors to challenge the status quo.These emerging storage architectures are likely to

shape the DNA of coming storage systems:

lObject storagelCloud storagel Software-defined storage (SDS)

and virtualized storagelAll-flash arrays

OBJECT STORAGEUnrestricted scalability, ubiquitous access, cost-effi-

ciency, the ability to support custom metadata, and a se-

curity framework that safely supports multiple tenants

and heterogeneous, dispersed clients are the key charac-

teristics of an object storage system. Instead of files and

blocks, the basic data elements of an object store are ob-

jects with unique identifiers and custom metadata. Un-

like file-based storage with its hierarchical data structure,

objects are stored in an easy to manage, virtually infinite

object namespace.

Autonomous storage nodes that provide both process-

ing and storage resources comprise an object store, and it

can scale proportionally as nodes are added. To keep costs

at bay, storage nodes are typically built with off-the-shelf

commodity components, such as x86-based systems with

THE SEARCH FOR STORAGE SIMPLICITY

The complexity of SANs, their inherent lack of simulta-neous data access to multiple hosts (requiring clustered

file systems to orchestrate shared data access) and their

management overheadfrom configuring zoning, LUN

masking, virtual SANs and ISLs to provisioning LUNs to

hostsquickly became an impediment to virtualized in-

frastructures and an even bigger obstacle when used as

cloud storage. Block- and file-based protocols of tradi-

tional storage systemsthat have worked well with a lim-

ited number of hosts accessing data center storage across

private links have proven inapt for the boundless con-

nectivity requirements of mobile devices and a growing

number of cloud services. Traditional storage systems are

slowly adjusting to a changing computing and application

landscape by adopting scale-out architectures, supporting

HTML-based protocols and revamping storage back-ends

to more efficiently support flash, but the pace of change

Traditional storage systems are

adopting scale-out architectures,supporting HTML-based protocolsand revamping storage back-endsto more efficiently support flash.
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-architectures-for-virtual-environmentshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-architectures-for-virtual-environmentshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Ask-the-expert-Comparing-scale-out-and-object-based-storage-systemshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Ask-the-expert-Comparing-scale-out-and-object-based-storage-systemshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Expert-video-Scale-up-vs-scale-out-storage-explainedhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Expert-video-Scale-up-vs-scale-out-storage-explainedhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Expert-video-Scale-up-vs-scale-out-storage-explainedhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Expert-video-Scale-up-vs-scale-out-storage-explainedhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Ask-the-expert-Comparing-scale-out-and-object-based-storage-systemshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Ask-the-expert-Comparing-scale-out-and-object-based-storage-systemshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-architectures-for-virtual-environmentshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-architectures-for-virtual-environments


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CLOUD STORAGE

For a storage platform to be considered cloud storage, itneeds to be:

l Network accessible. Similar to object stores, cloud stor-

age is typically accessed via Web protocols, such as REST.

l Shared. Shared, secure access across different clients

with multi-tenant capabilities that allow sandboxing dif-

ferent tenants is expected from contemporary cloud

storage.

l Service based. Cloud storage is consumed as a service

and paid for based on usage.

l Elastic.It needs to dynamically grow and shrink as

needed.

l Scalable. Cloud storage needs to dynamically scale up

and down based on demand, without an upper limit.

The majority of todays cloud storage offerings are

powered by an object store on the back end, so its no

surprise that object and cloud storage share many of the

same characteristics. While object storage is storage infra-

structure, cloud storage is a storage service. Cloud stor-

ageis available as a public service from companies like

attached JBODs, that are glued together by the object

storage softwares secret sauce. Sophisticated data pro-tection mechanisms of traditional shared storage systems

are replaced by a multi-instance object philosophy that

calls for storing copies of objects on multiple nodes, with

the number of copies depending on service levels and the

criticality of the data. Finally, object storage is accessed

via HTML-based protocols such as Representational State

Transfer (REST) that enable access to object storage from

any device anywhere.

Object storage is best suited to storing vast amounts ofunstructured data that needs to be readily available to a

wide range of clients. It has become the preferred storage

architecture of Web 2.0 applicationsand websites that

deal with a high volume of unstructured data, from im-

ages and videos to any other file types. Its also finding its

way into corporate data centers to help with the explosive

growth of unstructured datathat has overwhelmed tradi-

tional storage systems.

Object storage is unsuitable for structured data and

transactional applications where traditional storage sys-

tems have excelled and will continue to dominate. While

early object stores were proprietary (built by the likes

of Yahoo and Google), established storage vendors have

been offering object stores such as Caringos Object Stor-

age Platform, Dells DX Object Storage Platform, EMCs

Atmos, Hitachi Data Systems Hitachi Content Platform

and NetApps StorageGrid. (Continued on page 14)
http://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Defining-cloud-storage-Nine-cloud-requirements-to-knowhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-storage-right-for-your-organisationhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-storage-right-for-your-organisationhttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/tutorial/Representational-State-Transfer-REST-Tutorialhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Inside-object-based-storage?pageNo=1http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Inside-object-based-storage?pageNo=1http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Object-storage-gains-steam-as-unstructured-data-growshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Object-storage-gains-steam-as-unstructured-data-growshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Object-storage-gains-steam-as-unstructured-data-growshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Object-storage-gains-steam-as-unstructured-data-growshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Inside-object-based-storage?pageNo=1http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Inside-object-based-storage?pageNo=1http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/tutorial/Representational-State-Transfer-REST-Tutorialhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-storage-right-for-your-organisationhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-storage-right-for-your-organisationhttp://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Defining-cloud-storage-Nine-cloud-requirements-to-know


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Emerging storage architecturesMERITS CHALLENGES USE CASES

OBJECTSTORAGE

lVery scalablelVery flexiblelCost efficientlDistributed architecture

lNew storage protocolsand APIs

lNot good for structureddata and transactionalapplications

lStorage for Web 2.0 andwebsites/services thatmanage large amounts ofunstructured data

lCorporate storage for largeamounts of unstructureddata

CLOUD

STORAGE

lService based

(pay-as-you-go)lVery scalablelCost efficientlSimplified storage

management

lSecurity concerns

lOnly accessible via storageAPIs

lNot appropriate forstructured data andtransactional applications

lStorage for Web 2.0

applications and websites/services that manage largeamounts of unstructureddata

lCorporate storage for largeamounts of unstructureddata

SOFTWARE-DEFINEDSTORAGE

lAbstraction of software fromthe underlying hardware

lImproved interoperability

lEnables more flexiblestorage configurations

lNot necessarily in theinterest of storage vendors,since it devalues their

lucrative storage hardwarebusiness

lVirtual storage applianceslMany object and cloud

storage systems are based

on software-defined designprinciples

ALL-FLASHARRAYS

lAn order-of-magnitudebetter performance thandisks

lSturdier than disk systems

lHigh pricelChallenges of traditional

storage arrays to supportthe high performance ofNAND flash

lHigh-performanceapplications


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reshaping storage architectures. One of the main bene-

fits of decoupling the software stack from the underlyinghardware is the flexibility of being able to mix disparate

platforms that may vary in size, capabilities, performance

and price, depending on requirements.

Even though software-defined everything has re-

cently caught the attention of the storage marketing ma-

chines, it has existed in various forms in the storage realm

for a while. A virtual storage appliance (VSA), where the

storage software runs on a virtual machine (VM) and is

distributed as a VM image, is one example of software-defined storage. For instance, NetApps Data Ontap Edge

VSA no longer requires a NetApp filer, but its VM image

runs on any server with the appropriate hypervisor, and it

seamlessly integrates with other NetApp systems.

Today, VSAs are primarily deployed in remote of-

fices and for use cases that dont merit hardware appli-

ances, such as embedded applications and mobile military

systems. VSAs can be put directly into the cloud to en-

able elasticity at a low cost, said Val Bercovici, NetApps

cloud czar, citing another use case of VSAs. In general,

the majority of object stores and cloud storage systems

are following the SDS model, where the software stack

runs on low-cost commodity components. Without ques-

tion, the abstraction of storage software from the under-

lying hardwareis a trend that will continue. Over time,

standards like the Storage Networking Industry Asso-

ciations Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI),

Amazon (S3) and Rackspace; it can also be deployed in-ternally to service corporate departments and users, and

charged back by usage. It can be deployed as a hybrid

storage cloud that combines internal and external cloud

storage. Its benefits are usage-based consumption, elimi-

nating the need for storage infrastructure, the ability to

dynamically adjust and scale to any storage demand, and

unfettered access via Web protocols.

The security concern of handing off confidential and

private data to an external storage cloud is still the mainreason hindering cloud storage adoption. Akin to object

storage, cloud storage is best suited for unstructured data

and isnt appropriate for structured data or as a data store

for transactional applications.

SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGEAND VIRTUALIZED STORAGEStorage systems have for the most part been a combi-

nation of proprietary storage software running on stor-

age vendors custom hardware, with the infrastructure

components optimized for their storage software stack.

Software reuse has been limited, often even within ven-

dors own storage systems, and rarely ever across vendor

boundaries. The move toward a virtualized infrastruc-

turethat started with server virtualization and has since

extended to other areas, such as networking, is actively

(Continued from page 12)
http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/2013-a-year-of-software-defined-storage-convergence-and-cloudhttp://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/2013-a-year-of-software-defined-storage-convergence-and-cloudhttp://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/storage-hardware-and-the-steel-industry/http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/storage-hardware-and-the-steel-industry/http://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Cloud-Data-Management-Interfacehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Is-your-storage-infrastructure-ready-for-the-cloudhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Is-your-storage-infrastructure-ready-for-the-cloudhttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Mitigating-storage-management-pain-points-in-virtual-environmentshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Mitigating-storage-management-pain-points-in-virtual-environmentshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Mitigating-storage-management-pain-points-in-virtual-environmentshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Mitigating-storage-management-pain-points-in-virtual-environmentshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Is-your-storage-infrastructure-ready-for-the-cloudhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Is-your-storage-infrastructure-ready-for-the-cloudhttp://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Cloud-Data-Management-Interfacehttp://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/storage-hardware-and-the-steel-industry/http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/storage-hardware-and-the-steel-industry/http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/2013-a-year-of-software-defined-storage-convergence-and-cloudhttp://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/2013-a-year-of-software-defined-storage-convergence-and-cloud


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formance, [and theyre] missing many enterprise features

and maturity, said Mohit Bhatnagar, NetApps seniordirector of flash products. But within two to five years,

reliability and capabilities such as QoS will be there.

DARWINISM IN THE STORAGE REALMTraditional storage arrays are far from dead, but theyre

evolving to support the requirements of a changing

compute landscape thats fraught with cloud and mobile

computing. The move toward scale-out architectures, anincreased use of solid-state storage and adoption of new

storage protocols are evidence of this transformation.

File-based storage is trending toward becoming object

storage and is already competing with object-based stor-

age to power cloud services. Block-based storage will con-

tinue to be critical for structured data and transactional

applications, but vendors of those systems are adopting

scale-out back-ends and evolving their storage architec-

turesto better cope with the requirements of NAND flash

and other emerging semiconductor-based storage tech-

nologies. In the meantime, the storage world is full of

opportunities for new vendors to emerge that are able

to move more quickly and are willing to gamble on

innovative and unconventional technology. n

JACOB N. GSOEDLis a freelance writer and a corporate directorfor business systems.

and frameworks provided by the likes of OpenStack and

CloudStackwill eventually enable interoperability be-tween storage components from different vendors.

ALL-FLASH ARRAYSSolid-state storagehas been a disruptive and game-

changing storage technology. An order-of-magnitude

faster than mechanical disks, NAND flash-enabled new

storage designs are displacing expensive techniques like

short-stroking to lower access times and improve I/O.Semiconductor based and void of mechanical compo-

nents, NAND flash is positioned right between DRAM

and mechanical disks, both from a price and performance

perspective.

Many contemporary storage arraysnow offer solid-

state storage, either as cache or as a substitute for me-

chanical disks. However, very few all-flash arraysare

available because of the relatively high cost of NAND

flash and performance limitations of traditional storage

arrays that are optimized for mechanical disks. Contrary

to hybrid disk/flash arrays, all-flash arrays can support

hundreds of thousands of IOPS and are used for very

high-end applications where minimal latency and maxi-

mum IOPS are needed. All-flash systems are available

from companies such as Nimbus Data, Pure Storage,

Violin Memory and Whiptail.

At present, all-flash arrays are mostly about high per-
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/An-experts-guide-to-building-a-big-data-storage-architecturehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/An-experts-guide-to-building-a-big-data-storage-architecturemailto:jgsoedl%40yahoo.com?subject=http://searchcloudprovider.techtarget.com/news/2240148471/CloudStack-vs-Openstack-Competitors-or-allieshttp://searchcloudprovider.techtarget.com/news/2240148471/CloudStack-vs-Openstack-Competitors-or-allieshttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/feature/Solid-state-storage-technology-App-needs-dictate-choice-of-arrays-cache-appliances-or-servershttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Hitachis-enterprise-storage-arrays-back-on-tophttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/All-flash-array-products-take-aim-at-virtualisation-I-O-demandshttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/All-flash-array-products-take-aim-at-virtualisation-I-O-demandshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Hitachis-enterprise-storage-arrays-back-on-tophttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/feature/Solid-state-storage-technology-App-needs-dictate-choice-of-arrays-cache-appliances-or-servershttp://searchcloudprovider.techtarget.com/news/2240148471/CloudStack-vs-Openstack-Competitors-or-allieshttp://searchcloudprovider.techtarget.com/news/2240148471/CloudStack-vs-Openstack-Competitors-or-alliesmailto:jgsoedl%40yahoo.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/An-experts-guide-to-building-a-big-data-storage-architecturehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/guides/An-experts-guide-to-building-a-big-data-storage-architecture


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Memorizing RAID level definitionsand knowing which level does what can be:

Confusing

Hard to Remember

Useful

All of the above

So how much do you think you know about RAID?

Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our

Exclusive RAID Quiz! And dont forget to bookmark this page

for future RAID-level reference.

Test your knowledge at

SearchSMBStorage.com/RAID_Quiz
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CLOUD BACKUP

CLOUD BACKUP SERVICEScan truly change the way your IT

department protects company data, but theres more to

do than just sign up with cloud backup providers in the

market. You may have discovered that your end users

have grown frustrated because the company lacks an ef-fective, easy-to-use backup system for their mobile de-

vices or desktops, and have taken the issue into their

own hands by installing cloud backupor file synchroni-

zation software themselves. You may have also run into

problems backing up remote sites or branch officesthe

process has become too difficult to manage or youre un-

able to meet what you consider to be a reasonable recov-

ery time objective. Finally, you might be interested in

cloud backup because youre considering outsourcing all

your companys backups to a cloud provider. For all these

cases, cloud backup might be an appropriate alternative,

but youll have to determine if its a feasible and afford-

able option for your particular environment.

By W. Curtis Preston

A PRACTICALGUIDE TO CLOUDBACKUPCloud backup providers havegrown up from their consumer

product roots and now offerservices that can meet theneeds of enterprises. Hereswhat you need to know.
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CLOUD BACKUP

Combine the low bandwidth requirements of to-

days cloud backup software and huge amounts of avail-

able bandwidth with aggressive pricing, and you begin to

CLOUD BACKUP HAS MATURED

Cloud backup isnt all that new; such services werearound long before the term cloud was even con-

sidered. A few changes in technology, however, have

brought cloud backup to the forefront.

The first change is in the backup software itself, in-

cluding technologies such as continuous data protection

(CDP) and source data deduplication. They reduce by one

or two orders of magnitude the amount of data that must

be sent from the backup client to the backup server to en-

able the backup process. (Both CDP and source dedupetechnologies are block-level incremental forever and

never need to do a full backup.)

The next change falls into the area of the consumer-

ization of IT, because technology advances in the con-

sumer space are once again driving technology in the

enterprise arena. Consumer products have helped make

broadband Internet access ubiquitous; many people have

better bandwidth at home than they do at their office.

Widely available broadband communications make cloud

backup far more accessible compared to when previous it-

erations of cloud backup serviceswere available.

Another consumerization-induced change is the im-

pact of the way cloud backup providers have aggressively

marketed their services to consumers, luring them with

pricing thats almost impossible to turn down. Many con-

sumers spend less for a year of secure, off-site backups

than they do for a single month of basic cable.

Are file sync-and-share

services good enoughfor backup?SMALLER COMPANIESsometimes use file-

synchronization services in lieu of traditional

backup or cloud backup. Its possible to do this

responsibly, but it can also create a disaster.

The difference between the two is the exis-

tence, or lack thereof, of file history. If you dont

have file history, you are one CTRL-ALT-DEL

away from disaster. That command would se-lect and then delete all your companys data.

The file-synchronization service will then repli-

cate that deletion to every device youve set up

to replicate to as well as the cloud copy.

With three keystrokes, all your company

data is gone. However, if you went with the op-

tional history feature, a few more keystrokes

could regain all your data. Word to the wise:

Dont use file-synch services that lack a history

option or some other backup mechanism. n
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/video/Posey-Defend-your-continuous-data-protection-solutionhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/Source-deduplication-helps-ease-remote-site-backuphttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/Cloud-backup-services-popular-despite-risks-solution-providers-sayhttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/Cloud-backup-services-popular-despite-risks-solution-providers-sayhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/Source-deduplication-helps-ease-remote-site-backuphttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/video/Posey-Defend-your-continuous-data-protection-solution


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CLOUD BACKUP

cloud backup service may use its software to store your

backup data on Amazon S3 or Glacier. Depending on thecloud backup provider, all services including storage may

be included in a single bill, or you may be billed for their

software and required to set up your own account with a

compatible cloud storage provider.

l Cloud gateway appliances.Cloud gateway appliances

are available as physical or virtual devices and act as a

go-between between your data center and a cloud stor-

age provider. Theyre not backup systems any more thanfile-synchronization services are, but theyre marketed

as a storage and backup offering because they offer syn-

chronization and history (see Are file sync-and-share

services good enough for backup?). Think of this as a

cloud version of the model that NetApp made so popular:

snapshots and replication as both a storage and backup

solution. Some of these vendors describe what they do by

calling themselves the NetApp of the cloud.

understand why the leading consumer backup services

boast of tens of millions of subscribers. These customersthen go to their workplace and say, If this works for my

home data, why cant it work for my work data? The an-

swer is that it probably can, so lets take a look at whats

available.

AVAILABLE SERVICES FROMCLOUD BACKUP PROVIDERS

All cloud backup options offer the ability to get data off-site in a secure fashion. The only questions are what

you use to get the data off-site, and what off-site storage

youre going to use.

lTheir software, their storage. The most common option

is a full-service cloud backup service providerthat pro-

vides both the software you install on the computers you

wish to back up, as well as the storage that will be used to

store your backups. Most people choose this option be-

cause its the simplest. You simply download and install

some software, set up automated billing and start your

first backup. Backups couldnt be any easier.

lTheir software, cloud storage.This option is functionally

very similar to the previous option, except that your back-

ups arent stored on the cloud backup providers storage

but on another cloud providers storage. For example, the

The very first thing you need toexamine when considering cloudbackup services is the financial andtechnical viability of the company.
http://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Buying-a-cloud-storage-gateway-appliancehttp://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/tip/MSP-backup-solutions-for-hosting-cloud-backup-serviceshttp://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/tip/MSP-backup-solutions-for-hosting-cloud-backup-serviceshttp://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Buying-a-cloud-storage-gateway-appliance


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CLOUD BACKUP

particular, look for any news stories that describe past in-

cidents where the service might have lost any customer

data. Your organizations legal department should be able

to help investigate the financial viability of candidate

Any data you store on an appliance is cached locally

and replicated to the cloud, along with snapshots for his-tory purposes. If you delete all your data or lose the ap-

pliance itself, a copy of your data is in the cloud. If you

delete or corrupt one or more files, previous versions of

those files are stored in snapshots, which may be in the

cache or in the cloud.

WHAT YOU NEED TO CONSIDER

Like any other area of IT, there are options to considerwhen youre thinking about adopting cloud backups in

one form or another. Consider the following:

l Viability. Theres an old adage that says on the Inter-

net no one knows youre a dog. Similarly, anyone with

an Internet connection and a little bit of know-how can

become a cloud backup provider. On the Internet no one

knows the service might just be one person in a garage

with a computer and some USB storage hanging off it. So

the very first thing you need to examine when consider-

ing cloud backup services is the financial and technical

viability of the company.

If a cloud backup provider has a significant list of

current customers and is financially viable, you should

be able to find a lot of published material about the ser-

vice. The articles you find can offer some insight into

the size of the company and the direction its taking. In

Cloud backup

of cloud-based dataWITH ALL THIS talk of backing up to the cloud,you may be wondering about backups of the

cloud. That is, backups of data already stored in

a cloud service.

For example, your company may use Sales-

force.com, Google apps or similar Web-based

services where the only copy of your compa-

nys intellectual property is stored on someone

elses servers. You can trust that the online app

provider is protecting your data adequately or

you can take action to protect it yourself. Hav-

ing data restored by one of these services can

be expensive; for example, the cost of having

Salesforce.com restore data due to your compa-

nys error starts at $10,000 per account.

The good news is that companies like Back-

upify can back that data up for you, ensuring

you have an additional copy thats not stored

with the original. n


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CLOUD BACKUP

while the cloud copy ensures your data will survive a

major disaster. The other option is for the cloud backupservice to perform a reverse seed by restoring your

high-volume data to disks or tapes that they then ship

to you. Make sure youre aware of what options cloud

backup providers under considerationhave for large re-

stores and how quickly they can respond when a restore

is required.

l Insourcing. Larger companies may be interested in the

possibility of insourcing their backups after theyve out-

sourced them. Cloud backups can be a wonderful thing,

but the bill can sometimes get quite large. Companies

that find themselves in this position may be able to in-

source their backups by reverse seeding the entire backup

set back to their infrastructure and licensing the software

cloud backup providers.

You should learn as much as you can about how theservice will protect your data. Most services offer en-

cryption, but youll want to know if data is encrypted be-

fore its sent, and if the encryption key is known only to

you. Youll also need to ascertain whether backup data is

stored in one or multiple locations, especially if regula-

tory compliance is an issue for your company.

lTape or disk seeding. The most difficult hurdle your

company will have to overcome is the first backup. Itcould take months if you have a lot of data and are using

a typical Internet connection. To get started in a reason-

able fashion, find out if the cloud backup provider offers a

seeding option. This allows you to make your first backup

on your premises to a set of tapes or disks that you then

ship to the cloud vendor for them to load onto their stor-

age system.

l Large restores.Another situation you must consider

is what will happen when you need to restore a large

amount of data in a timely manner. Its one thing to re-

store a few gigabytes; its an entirely different matter to

restore a few terabytes. There are two ways of handling

this particular challenge. The first is to have an on-site

cache of your backups. You back up to a local appliance,

and that appliance replicates your backups to the cloud.

Large restores come directly from the local appliance,

Just because youre using a cloudbackup provider doesnt meantheyre managing your backupsfor you. If youre looking for a fully

managed provider, make sure yourexpectations are clear when yourein discussions with providers.
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CLOUD BACKUP

finish. They may, of course, ask you to do the initial in-

stallation of their backup software, but they take it fromthere.

TREAD LIGHTLYOutsourcing your companys backups to a cloud backup

provider may indeed bring you the peace of mind that

comes with knowing your companys data is adequately

protected and that the costs for those backups are predict-

able and reasonable. Choosing the wrong provider canalso get you fired. Do your research. n

W. CURTIS PRESTON(aka Mr. Backup) has been singularlyfocused on data backup and recovery for more than 15 years. He isthe webmaster of BackupCentral.com, and the author of hundredsof articles and the books Backup and Recoveryand Using SANsand NAS.

for internal use. If repatriating your backup operations

to in-house systems might be a possibility for your or-ganization, make sure to address your alternatives dur-

ing sales negotiations with any cloud backup service

providers.

l Fully managed or self-managed.Just because youre

using a cloud backup providerdoesnt mean theyre man-

aging your backups for you. If youre looking for a fully

managed provider, make sure your expectations are clear

when youre in discussions with providers. Some of themmerely provide the infrastructure for you to perform and

manage your own backupsthey dont even tell you if

backups worked properly or not. They might provide

email notification, but its up to you to read those emails

and act accordingly. No one is going to do anything if

you dont. Fully managed cloud backup providers, on

the other hand, manage the entire process from start to
http://www.backupcentral.com/http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tutorial/Cloud-backup-best-practices-A-tutorial-on-evaluating-cloud-data-backup-serviceshttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tutorial/Cloud-backup-best-practices-A-tutorial-on-evaluating-cloud-data-backup-serviceshttp://www.backupcentral.com/


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STORAGE MANAGEMENT

By Phil Goodwin

EFFECTIVESTORAGECAPACITYMANAGEMENTPoor allocation and provisioning,and a lack of effective capacitymanagement tools, can leadto underused storage systems.But new tools and improvedprocesses can make storageefficiency a reality.

STORAGE MANAGERS RARELYadmit they have a capacity

management problem. Instead, theyre more likely to talk

about how big a slice of their IT budget storage eats up or

the unpleasantness of unplanned purchase requests. In

some cases, the conversation focuses on the high cost pergigabyte of storage.

Other managers may be preoccupied with seeking a

solution to seemingly unattainable backup windows or

impossible disaster recovery scenarios.

Some are looking for capacity management tools or

processes that can identify and prune obsolete data, while

others are buying storage in large chunksannually to get

quantity discounts.

What do all of these scenarios have in common? In

each case, storage managers are trying to address a symp-

tom without taking a holistic view of a fundamental prob-

lem: the lack of an effective storage capacity management

regimine.
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240177287/Capacity-management-most-underestimated-cloud-problemhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240177287/Capacity-management-most-underestimated-cloud-problemhttp://www.computerweekly.com/podcast/How-to-purchase-and-manage-your-data-storage-capacityhttp://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/feature/Best-practices-for-storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/feature/Best-practices-for-storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/feature/Best-practices-for-storage-capacity-planninghttp://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/feature/Best-practices-for-storage-capacity-planninghttp://www.computerweekly.com/podcast/How-to-purchase-and-manage-your-data-storage-capacityhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240177287/Capacity-management-most-underestimated-cloud-problemhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240177287/Capacity-management-most-underestimated-cloud-problem


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STORAGE MANAGEMENT

provisioning. Its a legitimate perspective, but it can cover

an insidious incentive to overprovision because it allowsthat portion of storage to be ignored for a long period of

time. Some administrators will tout an 85% utilization

rate, even though perhaps only 20% of the array has actu-

ally been consumed. Such poor utilization, however, ul-

timately drives up the average cost per GB consumed by

2x or more with management none the wiser. Moreover,

most capacity purchases are triggered when allocated ca-

pacity hits 85% regardless of how much is really being

consumed. Responsible teams husband an organizationsresources more diligently.

WHY IS DATA GETTING SO BIG?The biggest driver of storage growth is secondary data,

copies of original data or primary storage. Secondary

data includes snapshots, mirrors, replication and even

data warehouses. The secondary data multiplier can be

as high as 15:1. It would seem the obvious solution is to

reduce the number of data copies, which may indeed be

the case. However, the secondary copies were likely cre-

ated for a reason, such as for data protection or to reduce

contention for specific sets of data. The unintended con-

sequence of optimizing storage capacity management

may be reduced data recovery capabilities or worse per-

formance. Thus, storage managers must be aware that

theres an inverse relationship between data recovery,

DONT LOOK TO THE CLOUD FOR ANSWERS

Lets state up front that cloud storage is not the solutionto a capacity management problem. Increasingly, cloud

is portrayed as the cure-all for what storage ailments are

afflicting companies. Cloud may mask the pain with a

somewhat lower cost per GB, but it does nothing to fun-

damentally address uncontrolled capacity expansion.

Cloud has a role in storage service delivery, but solving

capacity problemsisnt one of them.

It would be charitable to say that some organizations

storage utilizationis less than stellar. Many companieshave as little as 20% to 30% average utilization as mea-

sured by storage actually consumed. Those organizations

whose consumed utilization is more than 50% are the ex-

ception. This metric is one of the fundamental obstacles

to better utilization.

There are three basic ways to measure storage

capacity:

l Formatted(sometimes referred to as raw,

though there is a technical difference)l Allocated(sometime expressed as provisioned)l Consumed (or written)

When asked what their utilization rate is, most stor-

age administrators will quote the allocated figure. From

their perspective, if its allocated to an application, its

as good as consumed because its unavailable for new
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-provisioninghttp://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/data-reduction-in-primary-storage-DRIPShttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Inside-the-capacity-management-process-Resource-supply-and-demandhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Top-10-tips-for-capacity-management?pageNo=1http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Top-10-tips-for-capacity-management?pageNo=1http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Whats-the-relationship-between-storage-capacity-storage-utilization-and-storage-performancehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-provisioninghttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-provisioninghttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Whats-the-relationship-between-storage-capacity-storage-utilization-and-storage-performancehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Top-10-tips-for-capacity-management?pageNo=1http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Top-10-tips-for-capacity-management?pageNo=1http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Inside-the-capacity-management-process-Resource-supply-and-demandhttp://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/data-reduction-in-primary-storage-DRIPShttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storage-provisioning


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STORAGE MANAGEMENT

performance and capacity management; if you improve

one, youre likely to impede the other. Consequently, itsimportant to start with service-level requirements for re-

covery and performance. Capacity management can be

optimized only to the point that other service levels arent

jeopardized.

CAPACITY MANAGEMENT TOOLKITSFortunately, storage managers have numerous tools to as-

sist them in tackling capacity management. These includetwo general categories: utilities and reporting tools. Ar-

ray vendors have a number of useful utilities that are now

available with most systems.

Perhaps the most common of these is thin provision-

ing capability, which is supported by nearly every vendor.

Thin provisioning allows administrators to logically allo-

cate storage, but automatically keeps the physical alloca-

tion only slightly above the actual capacity used. Storage

is automatically allocated from a common pool as a vol-

ume demands more space. Because the array itself may

be logically overallocated, its possible to have an out-

of-space train wreck if administrators dont ensure that

enough physical capacity is available as data grows. This

is uncommon, however, as automated alerts should keep

administrators on top of the situation. Thin provision-

ing alone can largely alleviate the problem of high allo-

cation/low utilization. In most cases its complemented

Tools to take controlof capacity managementTHIN PROVISIONING

+Eliminates overallocation and increases

utilized capacity from 30% to 60%

+Cuts the cost per gigabyte (GB) stored

by 50%

COMPRESSION+A 2:1 compression allows twice as much data

in the same array, for another 50% reduction in

cost per GB stored

DEDUPLICATION

+A 2:1 deduplication rate further halves the

cost per GB of storage and the deduplication

rate could be higher for some data types

STORAGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS

+Manages storage as an enterprise, not

as individual arrays

+Measures storage metrics to drive best

practices

+Spots trends that could become serious

problems without proper attention n
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STORAGE MANAGEMENT

compression where vendors make efficiency guarantees,

there are no such guarantees with deduplication becauseits highly dependent upon data type. Media files gener-

ally dedupe poorly, whereas text files may dedupe quite

well.

CAPACITY MANAGEMENT REPORTING TOOLSThe other category of tools is reporting tools, or more

accurately, storage resource management (SRM) prod-

ucts. Both array vendors and independent vendors offerSRM products, examples of which include EMC Control-

Center, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co.s HP Storage Essen-

tials, NetApp OnCommand Insight (formerly SANscreen)

and Symantecs Veritas CommandCentral Storage. All

of them offer the ability to comprehensively manage and

monitor an enterprise storage environment. Yet few orga-

nizations leverage them, largely because SRM has gained

a reputation as being unwieldy and resource-intensive.

These limitations can be overcome by focusing on only

those aspects of an SRM application that are truly benefi-

cial, otherwise known as the 80/20 rule. In the context

of storage capacity management, you should focus on the

following:

Thresholds. Individual arrays provide threshold alerts,

but SRM applications can consolidate them and give an

enterprise-wide picture to administrators. This allows far

by a space reclamation feature that returns unused space

to the common pool. While array vendors may offer thisfeature, reclamation can also be performed by Symantec

Corp.s Veritas Foundation Suite for those who use that

product.

Another useful and near-universal utility is compres-

sion. Most vendors are willing to guarantee a 2:1 com-

pression on primary storage, or a 50% space savings.

Compression is normally applied at the LUN or volume

level, depending upon the vendors specific implementa-

tion. Compression does incur some performance penalty,though it can be as little as 5%. Of course, your mileage

may vary, so a proof of concept is worth the effort. From

a management standpoint, the benefit of compression is

cutting the cost per GB stored by 50%.

Compression is complemented by data deduplication,

though deduplication is not yet supported on primary

storage by every vendor; EMC Corp. and NetApp Inc. are

examples of vendors that do. Here again, deduplication

differs in its implementation on primary storage versus

backup appliances. On primary storage, data deduplica-

tion is an idle-time process and isnt nearly as aggressive

in eliminating duplicate blocks as deduping backup ap-

pliances. Because its a background process, the compres-

sion itself doesnt impact operations. Decompression,

known as rehydration, may have minimal or significant

effect on performance, so a proof of concept is advised.

Rehydration is more like reassembly of parts. Unlike
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l Growth rates.Knowing growth rates fosters accurate

forecasting, thereby avoiding unnecessary safety fac-tor purchases. Storage prices decline approximately

10% per quarter on a per-GB basis, so delaying an orga-

nizations purchases can yield substantial savings over

time.l Days storage in inventory.Using growth rates, calcu-

late how many days of storage growth capacity is on the

floor. Target 90 to 180 days. Less than 90 days doesnt

give purchasing enough time to do their job most ef-

fectively. More than 180 days and you could have pur-chased the storage later at a cheaper price.

Organizations can dramatically cut the cost per giga-

byte stored by using the array utilities that in many cases

are already paid for. Implementing thin provisioning,

compression and deduplication (where applicable) can

reduce this cost by 50% to 75%, which isnt bad by any

measure. However, best-practice organizations will im-

plement SRM products to take their storage management

to the next level. With it, storage managers can balance

and optimize performance, data protection and capacity

utilization simultaneously. n

PHIL GOODWINis a storage consultant and freelance writer.

more comprehensive planning and provisioning to pre-

vent one array from being oversubscribed while anotheris undersubscribed, for example.

Utilization.Again, SRM consolidates information that oth-

erwise must be manually aggregated (and who has the

time to do that?). Utilization figures to monitor include:l Consumed as a percent of raw.Know how much the ar-

ray is truly utilized. Target 55% or higher as a best prac-

tice, though this will vary with the age of the array and

growth rates.l Consumed as a percent of allocated.Know whether or

not the array is overallocated. Target greater than 70%

(85% if thin provisioning is used) as a best practice. Al-

locations lower than 70% may be acceptable for newly

provisioned LUNs or those with high, unpredictable

growth.l Secondary data.Know how much data is consumed by

snapshots, mirrors and the like. Target no more than

3x the primary storage. More than 3x may be justifiable

for various reasons, but this ensures that space isnt

consumed unnecessarily. This feeds into data/informa-

tion lifecycle management.

Trends. Thresholds and utilization are points-in-time.

Identifying trends is the key to optimizing capacity.
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HOT SPOTS | JASON BUFFINGTON

tape look like disk, effectively creating virtual disk devices

as the antithesis of VTLs.

THE ROLE OF TAPE IN A CLOUDY WORLDIf the number of users who employ tape as their primary

backup target dwindles and cloud use grows, what will

be the role of tape? One of tapes roleswill be economi-

cal data retention. Even with deduplication, compres-

sion, disks that spin down and other very compelling

disk-based retention and archival technologies, its hardto economically compete with the two-or-three-cents-per-

gigabyte economies that tape offers.

There are, however, two trends that could contribute

to a renewed interest in tape:

l More people understand theres a difference between

archiving and long-term backups. As e-discovery sce-

narios and regulatory requirements continue to evolve,

content-savvy archival apps are becoming more main-

stream to meet those needs. Archive vendors (and their

customers) seem to be of the mindset that the colder

the data needs to be, the more applicable tape might

be as part of the solution, often with high-performance

disk or flash in front of it.

l As cloud-based storage and backup providers con-

tinue to mature, tape tiers within their infrastructures

more companies moving to disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T)

and using disk as their primary recovery medium, beforestoring data on tape for longer-term retention.

In contrast, with all the cloud storage hype we hear,

only 7% of respondents use cloud in their data protection

strategy, including 2% going directly to backup-as-a-ser-

vice (BaaS) offerings. Another 5% back up to local disk

(presumably for faster recovery scenarios, deduplication

and buffering) before shipping backup data to a cloud

provider through an enhanced BaaS scenario or by lever-

aging cloud-based storage attached to their on-premisesbackup application.

NOT YOUR FATHERS TAPETo be fair, with newer tape formats, tapes speed and

unreliability issues have been resolved, but the bad rap

against tape persists. And in some cases, the old rules

have actually reversed themselves.

Twenty years ago, people wanted faster/better back-

ups than what tape could provide at the time. But backup

software didnt know how to use disk effectively, so disk

vendors created virtual tape libraries (VTLs), disk systems

that presented as tape.

Fast forward to today, and those who want cheaper/

cooler/greener storage than their existing disk solutions

may be surprised to discover that tape cartridges (LTO-6

with LTFS) can be mounted as file systems.LTFS makes
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HOT SPOTS | JASON BUFFINGTON

preferred deduplicating first tier as a recovery solution,

while tape has a role as economical, long-term retention.Sure, there are disk-based products that can dwarf the ap-

plicability of some tape implementations, just as there are

some snapshot technologies that can appear to diminish

the need for traditional backups.

Whatever the case, understand how you need to pro-

tect, retain and recover your data, and then keep an open

mind while considering the myriad technologies that

might meet those challenge while keeping an eye on

costs.n

JASON BUFFINGTONis a senior analyst at Enterprise StrategyGroup. He focuses primarily on data protection, as well as WindowsServer infrastructure, management and virtualization. He blogs atCentralizedBackup.comand tweets as @Jbuff.

may become more compelling. The main attraction

of cloud storage services is that they can scale, andproviders can offer capabilities less expensively than

what subscribers could do on their own. And since

the usual bottleneck between a subscriber and a pro-

vider is the Internet pipe (not the storage media), ser-

vice providers may embrace tape tiers within their

storage servicesto deliver scale while lowering their

own cost models.

Tape versus disk is as tired an argument as snap-shots versus backups. In both cases, it shouldnt have

to result in an either/or decision; rather, they should be

viewed as being better when used together. The same way

that you might use snapshots for faster recoveries and tra-

ditional backup for restoring previous versions, disk is the
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The evolution of datadeduplication continuesData deduplication for backup has evolved enormously inthe last decade, and its poised to go beyond just backup.

READ/WRITE |ARUN TANEJA

NEW TECHNOLOGIES OFTENcome to mar-

ket as value-add features for existing

mainstream products that are then

later merged into these products. Its

often the only way a new vendor can

bring a product to market, like what happened with data

deduplication tec

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