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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
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T
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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
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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
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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
using it to perfect their game. Learn how the team cut backup times by more than half atwww.overlandstorage.com/baseball or call 1-888-288-4103.
2007 Overland Storage, Inc.
Simply Protected Storage keeps a big league team at bat.
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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
INFOSTOR www.infostor.com J UL Y 20078
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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STEC, Inc. The STEC name, logo, and design are trademarks of STEC, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
For more information, contact our SSD specialists [email protected], call1-800-796-4645 or visit our website atwww.stec-inc.com.
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Other15.2%
LSI5%
Emulex35.3%
QLogic44.5%
Source: Dell'Oro Group
FC HBA market shares, Q1 2007
INFOSTOR www.infostor.com J UL Y 200710
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).
CONT INUED ON PAGE 16
VENDORS MENTIONED
Brocade, EMC, LSI
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INFOSTOR www.infostor.com J U L Y 2 0 0 712
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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INFOSTOR www.infostor.com J UL Y 200714
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
CONT INUE D ON PA GE 1 8
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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
CONT INUED ON PAGE 20
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
CONT INUE D ON PA GE 2 2
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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