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In Business You Always Have to Play the First String

2010-09-02T16:00:00Z

Football season is upon us and I am excited for it to get going. Right now we are seeing the 2nd string and shadow squads getting playing time in exhibition games and while they are wearing our teams' uniform they are clearly not the first squad.

They are not likely to see much on field time when the regular season is in full swing. Instead you will see the familiar names that teams depend on the likes of Brady, Brees, Favre, Manning, Orton and others that are household names.

You will not likely hear the name of any lineman (personal grudge there), or the name of even phenom rookies for that matter. Why? The first string stars get the nod because they deliver.

I am writing this as I am flying back from VM world and I want to draw this analogy for you. Many of you are playing your 2nd string and even your shadow squad when it comes to content generation. If I had a trade show vendor T-Shirt for every time I heard "We are just desperate for case studies because our staff does not have the time..." I would have a suitcase stuffed with T shirts. Well, I actually do but that's beside the point.

Even for those few of you who do have the time or are capable of writing your own content, here is the other nugget of information that we heard as we walked the floor of VM World: customers appreciate the objectivity we bring to bear, and are relying on DCIG's analysis to make buying decisions. Your internally written content will likely be seen as biased and, while it may all be accurate, it is viewed by end-users as a piece of content that is written by someone paid to drink your Kool-Aid.

At DCIG our clients find us to be a proven generator of top notch content. Further, we receive many accolades from our many followers regarding the depth and richness of the content we product. They look at us at their first string team that they can confidently hand off or pass to their sales people so they can make those 80 yard TD passes or runs.

The preseason may just be wrapping up so they can afford to put in their second stringers for one more week. But beginning next week, only the first string players come out to play.

You don't have that luxury. You need to put your best foot forward each every time and every day you step out onto the fired but if you are only playing with second string content, what sort of results can you realistically expect from your marketing and sales teams?

So if you need Case Studies, White papers, Executive White papers, or a product evaluation, we are ready to get in the game. DCIG is ready to get in the game for you, ready to equip your team to win, and ready to help you put best possible content into the hands of your prospects so just put us in, coach, put us in.

VMworld 2010: Why 17,000 Attendees Confirm that the Economy is Still Struggling

2010-09-01T16:30:00Z

I cannot think of a technology event that I have ever attended where record crowds were the best indicator that the economy is still struggling. But if there was ever an exception to that rule, VMworld 2010 is probably it.

As someone who has worked at a Fortune 500 company, I can appreciate how the last thing anyone in those companies wants to do is change anything that they are doing. Storage folks are especially risk averse and have historically been one of the slowest to adopt new technologies, especially in the enterprise space.

The continued uncertain state of the economy has changed all of that. Suddenly critical important advances in storage technology such as deduplication, scale out storage clusters, data management virtualization, and even storage virtualization which has been languishing for nearly a decade are gaining new interest, moving ahead and being adopted by enterprise storage shops equates to break neck speeds (in under two years).

As to to why this is the case, the reason is simple: the economy is still struggling and 2011 looks bleak at best by even the most optimistic of estimates. In light of that, companies are suddenly much more willing to examine and look at the the most efficient, cost-effective solutions that they can possibly get.

This means that as they look at their data center budgets, they are taking a much more inclusive look at all of the costs it incurs. This includes maintenance, power, service contracts, software licenses, floor space, data protection, and heating and cooling and viewing it more holistically in an attempt to shave costs while still growing the business.

As they do this, they are realizing the inefficiencies of their current ways and how virtualization in whatever form it takes (desktop, server, I/O, storage, etc.) is the only way out of this mess. Further, since they are going to spend some of this money anyway as operating expenses in the form of utility bills, rent, maintenance, etc., and can redirect that towards virtualization technologies that not only lower these costs but negate the need to spend capital dollars, why would they not do it?

So that is why 17,000 registered attendees are standing butt cheek to butt cheek on every square inch of the show floor and jam packing every session at VMworld. They know their jobs are on the line as 2011 looks uncertain at best. This means that their company needs better technologies to become leaner and meaner to not only remain in business but compete and grow.

So when organizations look at what solutions are available on the market and where to go to find those technologies, there are a limited number of choices. However it is clear that after attending VMworld 2010, it is a preferred choice for many to help them find solutions to the tough problems that they are having.

Ease of Use and Licensing Costs Trump Other Backup Software Features in the Minds of Many SMEs

2010-08-31T13:30:00Z

Talk all you want about the different features and functions found in backup software. If an IT administrator in a small and midsize enterprise (SME) thinks about backup at all it is in the context of "How easy is it to get it to work?" and "How much does it cost?" However, calculating any backup software's ease of configuration and price is tricky at best. That's why backup appliances such as the Revinetix Sentio, that includes all needed backup software features and only charges based upon the amount of capacity purchased, simplifies this buying decision for many SMEs.

The attitude that IT administrators within SMEs exhibit towards backups is simple to understand: they do NOT want to think about it. I recently had a conversation with one such IT administrator who is responsible for four data centers, numerous remote sites, 15 VMware ESX servers, about 200 VMs running Windows, a virtual desktop deployment, his company's disaster recovery (DR) plan and backup.

So when I asked him questions such as "What his deduplication ratios were?" and "How much backup data he was moving over his WAN on a nightly basis?" he paused and said, "I don't know and, to a certain degree, I don't really care. All I know is that using disk as a backup target makes my backups work and I don't have to think about them anymore plus I now have a handle on my costs."

He went on to explain that when he selected his solution there were four criteria that it had to satisfy:

Make it easy to implement
Keep it easy to manage
Stop my backup pain
Don't blow my budget

But what was interesting is that when I asked him which one was the single biggest feature that he prioritized above the rest, it was the last one: cost. Yes, he wanted all of the features that everyone reads and hears about - deduplication, disk-based backup, replication, support for multiple operating systems (Linux and Windows) and support for Microsoft applications and features such as Active Directory (AD), Exchange, SQL Server and Windows File Server. But if the backup software's upfront and ongoing costs were too much, there was no way he could deploy it no matter how much money it saved him.

Further, his situation is representative of the difficulty that most SME IT administrators encounter. They do not have time to learn all of the intricacies associated with managing any one specific technology.

So, trying to arrive at the exact return on investment (ROI) that a specific technology will provide to their business is a bit like trying to read a crystal ball. They often do not have sufficient in-depth information (such as what type or how much data they have, how well their applications are performing, or the success rates of their applications backups) to make an informed decision.

Since they have no way to accurately quantify their current environment, they cannot document what financial benefits a specific new technology will provide to their business. So when they hear that they can achieve a 20:1 deduplication ratio or replicate all of their data offsite, it is interesting but secondary to what they are seeking to accomplish first. Many, if not most, are looking to end their backup pain (which usually entails replacing tape with disk as their primary backup target) and then keeping the upfront and ongoing costs of the solution within budget.

This is where turnkey solutions like Revinetix Sentio come into play. It provides the key technologies that will have the immediate positive impact that SME IT administrators want and which their management will understand. The Revinetix Sentio backup appliance includes:

Backup software. SMEs often suffer from having a myriad of backup software products as well as applications that go unprotected for a lack of funds. The Revinetix Sentio comes with its own backup software, RevOS, that can be used on as many application servers and desktop clients as the SME may have without incurring additional cost. This allows SMEs to standardize on it and eliminate the licensing costs of other backup software products that they may own.
Disk-based backup. If there is any one ingredient that has become a key to successfully completing backups and recoveries, it is the use of disk as the primary target for both backup and recovery. Revinetix Sentio natively supports disk with storage capacity on its models ranging from configurations with as little as 500 GB of storage to as high as 70 TBs.
Microsoft application support. Sentio natively includes backup agents for Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server as well as offers AD and Windows file server support.
Deduplication. Storing data to disk only remains affordable and practical over time if data is deduplicated. The Sentio appliance includes this feature that is critical to disk-based backup.
Replication. SMEs are tired of DR plans that entail moving tapes in the backseats of their cars. Storing backup data on disk opens the door for them to automatically replicate data offsite. Using Revinetix' byte-level replication, SMEs can replicate data to another offsite Revinetix appliance or, if they do not have a secondary site, copy data to an external hard drive or even a USB thumb drive.

But what makes the Revinetix solution so valuable is that SMEs get all of these features when they acquire the Sentio appliance. Since Revinetix licenses by capacity and not by the features that are utilized, users are not forced to guess which features they might most benefit from and then pay for them. Instead, Revinetix provides them with all of the features that they need up front and then only charges them based upon the actual amount of capacity that they use, which its deduplication feature helps to minimize.

IT administrators in SMEs are excited as anyone else about the recent enhancements in backup technologies. But, at the end of the day, they do not have time to build a business case for individual technologies as they can only afford to implement the technologies that they can afford, which are easy to implement and manage and solve their immediate backup pain.

This is what the Revinetix Sentio is designed to do. It delivers the simplicity and ease of use that SMEs need in order to solve their immediate backup pain, it keeps backups from again becoming a pain after its deployment and is licensed in such a way that they have access to all of the features that they need without it blowing their budget.

NEO 8000e Readies Itself to Assume Archiving Role in Enterprise Data Management

2010-08-30T10:00:00Z

Over the past few years there has been a lot of hype that tape storage is being left dead. But while disk is capturing the fancy of enterprise organizations because of disk's success in solving their primary backup and recovery problems, longer-term issues with data management are just now starting to surface. It is for this reason that enterprise data centers are finding new tape library solutions such as the Overland Storage NEO 8000e well suited for their emerging archiving needs.

Companies are no longer just paying lip service to effective data management; it is now viewed as a core enterprise issue. According to IDC the amount of electronic data created and stored in 2011 will grow to 10X the 180 exabytes that existed in 2006 which totals 1.8 zettabytes. Driving extreme data growth are a number of factors including:

The high cost of data loss
Organizational mandates to drive more cost efficiency out of the infrastructure
Budget constraints
More regulatory requirements regarding data retention.

The challenge for IT then becomes how to balance their new needs for faster, successful backups and recoveries with complementary archiving solutions that provide a low cost per GB, a long shelf life, minimize power consumption and maximize floor space consumption.

It is for this combination of reasons that both disk and tape continue to be used in enterprise organizations. While disk solutions are being used as the primary target for backup and recovery, tape is settling very nicely into its new role as a deep archive for rarely accessed data in these organizations. In fact IDC anticipates that sales of automated tape libraries with more than 100 tape cartridges may actually rise over the next five years.

This is driving innovation in the tape library market as is evidenced by Overland Storage's recent introduction of its new NEO 8000e tape library.

The new NEO 8000e provides up to 3PB of storage capacity on as many as 1000 data cartridges. Further, by including support for up to 24 LTO-5 tape drives that support throughput speeds at 1TB per hour per drive, it can move data at a whopping 24 TBs per hour.

The NEO 8000e includes the features that enterprises expect tape libraries designed for their environments to possess. Redundant robotics and power, remote management, a reduction in the number of moving parts, embedded partitioning and power management are just some of the features offered by the NEO 8000e.

Beneath the covers the NEO 8000e includes a new interface that allows it to direct connect to tape drives. This connection eliminates its prior dependency on bridge cards which should result in improved tape library reliability as well as new flexibility in providing network connections since enterprise may now have as many different interfaces (FC, SAS, SCSI) as they have tape drive slots.

The NEO 8000e also embeds partitioning at the software level. This is usually available only as a hardware add-on feature or as a firmware option that is turned on via licensing. The NEO 8000e eliminates the need for more hardware as well as the upfront firmware licensing cost by making it a standard feature that every organization can use at no charge for up to four (4) partitions.

This feature takes on added significance since more enterprise organizations are looking to consolidate archive data from multiple business units onto one device while still keeping the data from each business unit logically separate. Using this freely available partitioning feature enables enterprises to configure the NEO 8000e so it appears as a separate physical library to each business unit.

The NEO 8000e has also beefed up its reliability. In tape libraries reliability is measured in terms of MCBF (mean cycles between failures) with most tape libraries in this class averaging about two million MCBF. But due to the improvements Overland Storage has made in its NEO 8000e it has been able to increase its MCBF to four (4) million, resulting in a lower cost of ownership and improved performance.

Possibly most important to enterprises during continued times of economic strain is NEO 8000e's price: the base configuration with 100 cartridges is currently available for $47,999 MSRP. In addition, between now and the end of September 2010, end users who purchase a 100 slot configuration can upgrade to a total of 500 slots at no additional charge, representing a savings of up to $36,000. This promotion gives end users the opportunity to use the capacity they need now and not have to pay for a capacity upgrade when their storage needs increase.

Disk may be taking over the role as the primary backup target but the focus of enterprise organizations is shifting from solely solving their enterprise backup problems to solving their larger enterprise data management issues. As they do, tape and tape libraries are clearly staying in the enterprise conversation because of the new role that tape is anticipated to play in archiving.

Overland Storage is well positioned to address the end-to-end data protection issues of customers in this class. With an extensive background in storage, Overland understands what is needed to make products such as the NEO 8000e well-suited to address the long-term backup, archive and disaster recovery needs of the most complex data center.

HP Versus Dell: The Loser Will Be Left on the Outside of the Cloud Storage Story Looking In

2010-08-27T10:00:00Z

The bidding war for 3PAR between Dell and HP continued yesterday with 3PAR first announcing that it had reached an agreement to be purchased by Dell for $24.30 a share and then, before the end of the day, HP countered with a $27 per share price offering. This back and forth has captured the attention of many of those who follow storage and even those who do not. But what is puzzling to many is, "What is so interesting about 3PAR that it is prompting Dell and HP to fight over it?"

Being an analyst that has provided extensive coverage of 3PAR and knows its storage systems inside and out as well as the storage systems of many of its nearest competitors - I am uniquely positioned to answer that question.The answer to it is two-fold.

First, much like EMC and NetApp got into a bidding war over Data Domain a little over a year ago, Dell and HP find themselves in a predicament similar to what EMC and NetApp found themselves in at that time.

In 2009 deduplication in the backup process was the HOT technology. NetApp offered deduplication as a feature on its FAS line of storage but it was not necessarily tuned for deduplicating backup data. EMC was even in worse shape because while it resold some deduplication technology, it had no native offering.

So with Data Domain the largest player in this rapidly growing market, neither NetApp nor EMC wanted to be on the outside looking in which resulted in the ensuing bidding war between these two companies for Data Domain with EMC eventually emerging the victor. Since then sales of Data Domain products and its deduplication technology have exploded within EMC making its acquisition of Data Domain seem like a steal.

The same situation is largely playing out here. Both Dell and HP know enterprise companies are going to adopt cloud storage models but both are stuck in situations where they resell enterprise storage products from EMC and HDS respectively. So with this market poised to explode (and it is going to explode!), they are also left on the outside looking in and, worse yet, only being in a position to resell their competitors products - not an enviable situation.

So when they look for a large independent provider of enterprise cloud storage, there are really only two companies out there: 3PAR and NetApp. Of the two, 3PAR is much more affordable and even while HP's current bid for 3PAR is now approaching $2 billion, it gets them into the enterprise cloud storage market at a fraction of the price that they would have to pay to obtain NetApp which would probably be well in excess of $15 billion.

Second, every enterpise organization is looking to run their data centers more economically and efficiently which means heavy doses of virtualization. While all storage systems by their very nature virtualize storage, 3PAR currently does it better than anyone else with its thin provisioning and distributed RAID technologies.

Further, 3PAR can almost be said to own those who are at the leading edge of the enterprise cloud storage market - Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Every MSP that I have even spoken to is either using 3PAR or is looking to migrate to it. Such a high level of adoption of 3PAR's enterprise cloud storage solution by this group of players foreshadows what is bound to occur in enterprise organizatons in the very near future.

So are Dell and HP paying a premium to get 3PAR? The answer is clearly yes. But when one looks at where the enterprise cloud storage market is going and considers that 3PAR is already an established player in a market where every storage provider is going to want to be, the loser is going to be on the outside looking in and needing to make a deal very quickly to compete.

Unfortunately for the loser, there are not a great deal of storage companies left for them from which to choose that can provide the cloud storage story that it will so desperately need to remain competitive. But there are three other storage providers aside from NetApp that I see quickly moving into the loser's cross hairs:

Compellent
Nexsan Technologies
Pillar Data Systems

The answer as to which one of these three that may ultimately get acquired is PIllar which may come as surprise to some people. As to the reasons why, that I will get into in a week or two once this bidding war for 3PAR subsides.

Note: Since this blog entry posted, Dell has since upped its offer to match HP's offer of $27 per share for the takeover of 3PAR. Updated 8/27/2010 - 8:10 am CST.

Note: HP has now upped its bid for 3PAR to $30 per share. It appears 3PAR is a company that neither Dell nor HP can afford to NOT to own. Updated 8/27/2010 - 10:50 am CST.

DAGs Plus Small Business Storage Arrays Open Door to Create Enterprise Like Exchange 2010 HA Solutions

2010-08-26T10:00:00Z

The introduction of Database Availability Groups (DAGs) into Microsoft Exchange 2010 is being hailed by many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) as a key technology to making high availability (HA) accessible and affordable since it enables the use of hard disk drives (HDDs) that are internal to a physical Exchange server. However the fact that SMBs can now use internal HDDs as part of Exchange HA solution does not necessarily mean they should. Rather they open the door to use economical small business storage arrays such as the Iomega StorCenter ix12-300r to create enterprise like HA solutions for their Exchange 2010 deployments.

Email defines "mission critical application" in most SMBs so configuring Exchange for HA has become almost viewed as a prerequisite. Yet because of the cost and/or complexity of configuring HA in prior releases of Exchange, many have foregone this critical aspect in their Exchange deployment.

Database Availability Groups (or DAGs) combine the onsite and offsite replication features found in previous versions of Exchange. Using Exchange 2010, organizations can configure up to 16 Mailbox servers to function as a single group such that any server in the group can host a mailbox database from any other server to facilitate automatic recoveries when an individual database fails.

The introduction of DAGs into Exchange 2010 now makes it possible to deliver a highly available Exchange deployment without:

Needing to purchase additional third party software or an external storage system that offered HA.
The complexity associated with setting up HA functionality within Exchange 2007

A trap that SMBs need to be cautious not to fall into here is to assume that DAGs negate the benefits of using an external storage system to store their Exchange database and logs. The introduction of DAGs in Exchange 2010 certainly enables SMBs to place their database and log files on HDDs that are internal to the physical Exchange server and still create an HA configuration but that does not mean that this is a recommended or even a preferred configuration.

If anything, internal HDDs should only be viewed as an option for those SMBs that conclusively know:

They do not need to scale their Exchange implementation
Will never need more performance

While using HDDs that are internal to the physical Exchange server in conjunction with DAGs may initially make it more economical to deploy, it fails to take into account two factors.

First, as the amount of data stored in the user mailboxes on the Exchange server grows, it is more difficult to add more storage capacity to the server to accommodate without taking an outage.
Second, since the Exchange database and log files are placed on the same disk, performance can begin to suffer as the Exchange server becomes busy servicing email requests if all data is placed on the same HDD.

Economical network attached small business storage arrays such as the Iomega StorCenter ix12-300r coupled with the use of the Exchange 2010 DAGs feature now make it possible for SMBs to create a highly available Exchange 2010 deployment with storage scalability and performance that keep their storage costs low. Small business storage arrays like the StorCenter ix12-300r are available in configurations starting at 4 TBs, can expand up to 24 TBs, and include features like enterprise-like automatic RAID rebuilds, hot swappable drives and storage pools that can group drives of like sizes and RAID protection together.

When used in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange, they provide the following benefits over internal HDDs:

The DAGs feature supports internal HDDs but that does not mean SMBs should use them. DAGs was included in Microsoft Exchange 2010 so any size SMB (no matter how small) could afford to create a highly available Exchange deployment. But depending on how many users there are and their Exchange usage level, SMBs with as few as 20 very active users could result in slow Exchange performance when all of the Exchange data and log files are on a single HDD.

DAGs can also be used with external storage systems. DAGs cannot tell whether the disk drive is internal or external to the physical Exchange 2010 server; all it detects is the storage capacity. This frees SMBs to use economical small business storage arrays so they can take advantage of their abilities to scale capacity and performance while using DAG to deliver HA functionality for their Exchange 2010 deployment.

As to why SMBs should use the Iomega StorCenter ix12-300r over competing products, there are four reasons that argue strongly in favor of this solution:

It supports storage pools so allocations of disk drives can be very granular. One of the desirable features within the new Iomega StorCenter ix12-300r is that it supports the creation of storage pools that may contain only one disk drive. So if an SMB is just starting out with an Exchange 2010 deployment, it can create a storage pool with only one disk and assign it to a DAG. As a DAG needs more capacity or performance, more disk drives can be added to the ix12 so a new storage pool can be created and the DAG then moved to that new storage pool.

It supports RAID 0. Iomega has found that by striping data across multiple disks that are in a RAID 0 group, Exchange 2010 gets a performance boost. While administrators normally resist using RAID 0 since if one disk in a RAID 0 group fails all of the Exchange data in that group is lost, since the DAG handles HA it replicates the data to another storage pool so Exchange can do a recovery.

All configurations are tested by EMC's Global Solutions Center. One of the distinct advantages that Iomega offers over other providers of small business storage arrays is that it is part of the EMC. This gives Iomega access to EMC's Global Solutions Center and, having personally visited that center on two occasions, offers Iomega a huge advantage over its competitors as this group is accustomed to testing applications in multiple configurations. As such SMBs can have a high degree of confidence that any Exchange 2010 deployment which EMC has certified with the Iomega StorCenter ix12 should work as they anticipate.

Virtualization certified. More SMBs are looking to virtualize all of their applications and Exchange 2010 is no exception. The Iomega ix12-300r is one of the few small business storage arrays certified with both Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware so SMBs can confidently use it in their virtualized environments.

SMBs have the same need for HA in their Exchange deployments as large enterprises. Thanks to the introduction of DAGs they can more easily and affordably deploy HA. However SMBs also need to scale their storage capacity and performance and need solutions that they can manage and are tested and certified for their Exchange 2010 deployment.

It is for that reason that they should do more than just look to take advantage of the growing number of economical small business storage arrays designed to meet this need. Rather they should identify small business storage arrays like the Iomega StorCenter ix12-300r that are specifically designed to meet this diverse set of requirements that Exchange 2010 introduces.

Can You Skin Griz Pilgrim?

2010-08-24T20:30:00Z

One of my favorite movies of all time is Jeremiah Johnson; I have probably watched it 50 times if I've watched it once. In the early stages of his education to mountain life Johnson meets up with a character named Bear Claw Chris Lapp (played by the guy who played Grandpa Walton).

Bear Claw asked Johnson an important question that I want to focus on today. He asked:

Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Can you skin Griz?
Jeremiah Johnson: I can skin' em as fast as you can catch' em.
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Skin that one, pilgrim, and I'll get you another!

This was an important question and a huge lesson to Johnson, as we see Bear Claw racing through the woods with a Grizzly Bear in chase the lesson was "be ready to work hard when things go well."

So how does this scene from the movies have anything to do with DCIG? Well, we have been hearing from one of our customers that licensed the first Midrange Array Buyers guide and it has been skinning one Griz after another as it were.

The customer told us that in the first month of its lead generation campaign that it was flooded with qualified leads and it has not seen much of slowing down since! (That is 3 months and counting) It was overwhelmed to say the least and has been closing deals just as fast as the leads come in!

What a great problem to have and what great confirmation for the use of the Midrange Array Buyer's Guide!

DCIG is heading into the fall with several new Buyers Guides scheduled to be completed and I wanted to encourage being ready to handle an influx of new leads if you are one of the companies eligible to participate in either of these two guides.

DCIG expects these guides to be as popular as the Midrange Array Buyer's Guide and, if you have products that fit in either Virtual Server Backup Software or Small Business Storage Array categories, I would suggest that you get ready to "Skin a Griz"! Because your marketing efforts, sales plans, and your entire year could be changed for the positive in the same way that the winning vendor of the Midrange Array Buyer's Guide saw its year changed.

So as you are filling out the questionnaires that you have received, will shortly get or can request from DCIG, have someone in Sales and Marketing get their skinning knives sharpened up and ready to go to work so you can receive that coveted praise:

"You've done well Pilgrim!"

Storage Virtualization Has Finally Found Its Perfect Match in the Form of Desktop Virtualization

2010-08-24T10:00:00Z

Ever since storage virtualization solutions from providers such as FalconStor first appeared on the scene nearly a decade ago, they have been actively on the lookout for a problem where they function as the killer app. Over the years storage virtualization solutions have frequently been adapted (CDP, NAS, VTL, etc.) to function in specific ways but until now it really has not been viewed as the perfect fit for any specific application. But now thanks to the rapidly growing adoption of desktop virtualization technologies such as VMware View in organizations, storage virtualization may have finally found its perfect match.

Desktop virtualization is a technology that I was a big believer in as far back as 1996 when I first deployed it at a police department where I used to work as a system administrator. However shortly after adopting it the limitations of the technology quickly became apparent to me. While it pretty much worked as advertised, it did not scale very well and it was best suited for a small number of end users who only used it to run the most basic of desktop applications.

Fast forward to today and enterprises are actively talking about roll-outs of desktop virtualization technology to not tens, hundreds or thousands of users but to tens and even hundreds of thousands of users. These types of conversations indicate that desktop virtualization technology has progressed to the point where even power users are comfortable running applications on virtualized desktops.

This is all good news to corporate management. Desktop virtualization addresses their growing concerns regarding the deployment and management of desktops and laptops as it minimizes the hardware and software costs associated with deploying, managing and maintaining them. Further, it centralizes the storage of user data so there are fewer concerns about data loss plus it creates new options for data protection and recovery. It is for reasons like these that corporate interest in its adoption is piqued.

However reports of storage problems are surfacing in the early deployments of desktop virtualization. As organizations consolidate desktops using VMware, they are encountering enterprise like storage problems. One commonly cited problem is the 8:00 am boot storm that occurs when thousands of users log on first thing in the morning. Some organizations reporting slowed user response times that last 30 - 60 minutes that is usually only solved with the deployment of very expensive solid state drives (SSDs).

Yet another commonly reported problem that desktop virtualization creates is a new need to economically scale out these back end storage systems. Consolidating all of this data that was once on desktops and laptops creates unprecedented storage requirements for data that whose value to the organization is sometimes deemed dubious at best. Yet supporting it requires storage systems that scale-out and adequately protect it. Needless to say, these systems are not cheap.

So this is the dichotomy that enterprises are running into: they need very specialized storage systems that scale-out to large storage capacities and can deliver high levels of performance. But at the same time organizations are accustomed to paying $50 - $100 for the internal hard disk drives (HDDs) that are found in desktops and are in no hurry in this economy to spend more just because they are adopting VMware View. If anything, they want to spend the same amount of money and ideally less.

Until now the storage industry really has had no response. But that starts to change with today's announcement from FalconStor regarding its Network Storage Server (NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View.

Making the FalsonStor NSS particularly well suited for VMware View is that it delivers the enterprise characteristics that organizations want their storage solution for their newly virtualized desktops to have: high levels of availability, reliability, performance and storage capacity. But what makes it stand out from the crowd is that organizations can get these storage features a price point at or even below what organizations pay now for hard drives in individual desktops and laptops.

A particularly desirable feature on the FalconStor NSS SAN Accelerator is its support of SSDs. While FalconStor has supported SSDs for some time, FalconStor has now extended that support to VMware View environments so it can provide the performance boost that VMware Views users need when they are booting up first thing in the morning. But because the NSS is also a storage virtualization engine, it also gives users the flexibility to use any tier of storage from any vendor that they want.

The FalconStor NSS also has many proven data protection technologies including snapshots, thin clones and replication. These features can then also all be deployed transparently and without impact to the end-users. But maybe best of all, there is every reason for enterprise organizations to believe that using all of the native capabilities that are found in FalconStor NSS they can eventually drive their cost per user for storage down to under $50/user without sacrificing capacity or performance.

Storage virtualization has for a long time been an answer searching for a problem. The enterprise storage challenges that desktop virtualization solutions such as VMware View create may be just the ticket to unlocking the pent-up value that has been building in storage virtualization solutions such as FalconStor NSS.

The one big edge that FalconStor NSS has over other storage system solutions is its flexibility in giving users the option to select any tier of storage that they want. While up to this point this flexibility has been minimized because cost was not always the overriding concern when used with business critical applications, cost is emerging as THE differentiator in desktop virtualization deployments, especially if it can deliver all of the other enterprise features that users are seeking.

It is for this reason that it appears that storage virtualization is more than just a perfect match for desktop virtualization. Desktop virtualization may finally be the app that makes FalconStor NSS and storage virtualization a must-have technology and one that is strategic in the eyes of enterprise organizations.

If you would like to learn how to get a better handle on the economies of scale that a virtualized storage infrastructure provides and how FalconStor helps organizations size it for VDI environment so as to weather the frequent I/O storms that occur in them, I encourage you to check out a blog entry by Fadi Albatal where he goes into greater detail on how FalconStor NSS SAN Accelerator for VMware View can provide these features.

Data Protection Set to Steal Some of the Spotlight at VMworld 2010

2010-08-20T17:30:00Z

If past VMworld conferences are any indication, more than 10,000 individuals will head to San Francisco the last week of this month looking for the latest advancements and news regarding VMware at VMworld 2010. But with so many organizations confronted with new backup challenges that are part and parcel of any VMware implementation, as well as looking to take advantage of the new recovery options that it creates, do not be surprised if data protection steals some of the spotlight at this year's event.

The hoopla around VMworld communicates just how critical server virtualization in general and VMware specifically has become. After all, where else can organizations get 2X, 5X or even greater returns for every dollar they spend while making themselves leaner, meaner and more efficient in the process? The answer is almost nowhere.

So while VMware will clearly have center stage throughout the conference, data protection stands to play a starring role as well. Organizations strongly suspect (and with good reason) that data protection can and should be much better in a virtualized environment than it is in their physical world. As their level of understanding and sophistication concerning server virtualization grows, they see no reason why the protection of their virtualized environment or its recovery should not also be better than what they are experiencing in the physical world.

But achieving these new levels of "optimized data protection" and realizing "new possibilities for recovery" will depend somewhat on where an organization is at in the process of virtualizing their infrastructure.

Organizations that are still in the early adopter stage of server virtualization and have virtualized less than 30% of their applications need to keep their expectations in check. If anything, those in this category are best served to make sure that all of their newly virtualized applications are protected. Odds are these newly virtualized servers have been inadequately protected in the past or even unprotected so organizations need to take the first steps of bringing them under the fold of a backup solution.

However the audience that the VMworld business continuity track and many of the data protection vendors at VMworld are primarily targeting is those organizations that are arriving or have already arrived at the saturation stage. These organizations have virtualized most if not all of their applications (up to 70%) and are finding that traditional approaches to data protection no longer meet their needs.

Organizations in this stage are becoming both time and resource constrained in their backups and recoveries. Further their IT departments are recognizing that a change is needed in order to provide the higher levels of service that the users they support are coming to expect and demand. They realize that traditional approaches to data protection may now have the exact opposite effect that organizations want as it may actually inhibit their organization's ability to continue to virtualize its infrastructure.

So what should organizations be looking for both in the tracks and vendor displays at VMworld if they find themselves saturated by their VMware deployment? Here are a couple of suggestions:

Take a few courses in the VMware Business Continuity track while at VMworld. I counted more than 15 different courses that are being offered in this track from Monday - Wednesday at VMworld. Two specific courses you may want to check out in this track are Introduction to Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery for VMware as well as Shrinking Backing Up VMware - Benchmarked and Best Practices as these sessions are likely to provide the background for those organizations looking to convert their VMware data protection from a technical inhibitor to a business enabler.

Check out the latest advances in disk based backup and deduplication. If there were ever three technologies made for one another, deduplication, disk-based backup, and server virtualization are it. EMC is a prime example of a data protection provider that recognized this trend early on and can provide deduplicating, disk-based backup solutions starting from the entry level all the way up to the enterprise.

Anytime 10,000 people descend on a conference it is certain to generate a certain amount of excitement but one type of excitement that most VMworld attendees would like to put firmly in their organizations' past is the excitement and anxiety that comes about when their backups fail. It is for this reason that data protection technologies are shaping up to steal some of the spotlight at VMworld this year because even though every organization finds server virtualization to be a great thing, just as many see having a virtualized environment that is reliably protected and easily recovered an even more desirable option.

Next Up from DCIG - Small Business Storage Array Buyer's Guide

2010-08-20T14:00:00Z

A few months ago DCIG released its first ever Buyer's Guide - the Midrange Array Buyer's Guide - to gauge the interest of such a guide among users and vendors alike. Needless to say, DCIG has been overwhelmed with the positive response and has received numerous requests to produce more like that one. But due to the amount of research and expertise required to produce these guides in an authoritative fashion in other segments of the storage market, DCIG elected to reach out to other analysts in the industry who have the needed experience to do this task.

To handle this Buyer's Guide DCIG contacted Stephen Fosket of Foskett Services to perform the research, data collection and analysis for the DCIG Small Business Storage Array Buyer's Guide that DCIG plans to release in the fall of 2010.

The DCIG Small Business Storage Array Buyer's Guide differs from the earlier Midrange Array Buyer's Guide in some of the following ways:

It only looks at storage arrays with up to approximately 30 TBs of storage capacity.
These storage arrays will likely NOT have all of the redundancy features found in enterprise midrange arrays such as dual controllers, dual power supplies, dual fans, spare disk drives, etc.
Their price point starts in the $500 range and usually will not go over $10,000.
They will usually have some intelligence built in (RAID, iSCSI, NAS) but not the full feature set found in a midrange array. Minimally they must have at least two disk drives and support some type of RAID configuration.

One of the primary reasons that DCIG and Foskett Services selected small business storage arrays as a focus for a Buyer's Guide is that these have become big business over the last few years. Small businesses as well as prosumers (professionals working from home) are looking to centralize and organize their data as well as support applications like email archiving and server virtualization. Technology has improved which is bringing comprehensive enterprise class features to them at very affordable prices. Further, performance and scalability are also improving on these arrays as well allowing these small arrays to grow along with the business.

As we prepared our questionnaire we were struck by the diversity of options available on these systems. File oriented NAS products have been joined by small SAN systems that are able to support high performance clustered applications. These systems often sport multiple interfaces, and many have hot swappable components and are rack mountable. Though scaled down in size and price, many appear on the surface to be as capable as they are larger enterprise midrange array counterparts.

Differentiating between the systems requires a deep knowledge of the end user storage needs and enterprise storage capabilities. The DCIG Small Business Storage Array Buyer's Guide will do more than present these options. It is designed to help end users make sense of the product landscape, identify the differentiators that are meaningful to their own use case, and pick the best product for their needs. It will undoubtedly also be useful to the OEMs and resellers of these storage products, enabling them to better communicate with the growing small array marketplace.

We have already done a great deal of research on this product segment and expect to begin distributing our online questionnaire next week to key product vendors in the space. Developers of these storage arrays should feel free to contact us regarding the Buyer's Guide to make sure they are included and as well to to offer any clarifying information that DCIG and Foskett Services may need to make an informed decision when the features on these products are scored and ranked.

Some of the companies that we tentatively plan to include in this Buyer's Guide include:

If you do not see a storage array or company included in this list drop me a note at jerome.wendt@dciginc.com or leave a comment on this blog entry and we will certainly consider it for inclusion in the Buyer's Guide.

The list of vendors to be covered was last updated on August 24, 2010, at 3:20 pm CST.

Symantec Looks to Take Server Virtualization Deployments All the Way with ApplicationHA

2010-08-19T17:00:00Z

A little over two years ago companies were advised to "start small" with virtualization but "think big" and, based upon what we are seeing today, it's clear that organizations followed that advice considering the wide scale adoption of virtualization that has occurred. But as they enter the "Think big" phase many are encountering a roadblock: business critical applications that they are hesitant to virtualize because of availability concerns on virtualized platforms. Enter this week's newly announced ApplicationHA from Symantec that looks to extend server virtualization all the way to even these business critical apps.

Two years ago Gartner issued a special report, "Gartner Identifies Six Best Practices Companies Should Consider Before They Virtualize Their Servers". That report listed "Start Small, Think Big" as the first best practice with Gartner advising organizations to take a two phase approach to server virtualization.

Gartner says, "The first phase focuses on server consolidation, cost savings and increased hardware use. The second phase is more strategically important, more complex to implement and provides far more value for the customer."

Those organizations who heeded Gartner's advice in early 2008 now probably find themselves somewhere towards the end of first phase - virtualizing the last of their physical servers - or in the early stages of phase two encountering one of Gartner's warnings - more complex to implement.

This coincides with what DCIG has found in its conversations with data centers managers of Managed Service Providers (MSPs). They typically have most of their data center virtualized (anywhere from 60 - 90%) but it is rare that I ever talk to one that has virtualized all of the application servers in its data center.

When I press them as to why this is the case, they state that they are not confident that server virtualization can provide them with the level of availability that they need for their business critical applications. It is for this reason they are keeping these applications running on physical servers.

Symantec has also found this resistance to be prevalent in separate research that it has internally done but it also uncovered some ways that organizations are adopting three tactics to provide high availability for these business critical applications.

One, they are doing nothing. This is what the majority of those polled by Symantec have done. They are continuing to focus on virtualizing tier 3 and possibly tier 2 applications but staying away from virtualizing any application that is deemed business critical.
Two, they are leveraging VMware HA. Those few brave souls who have virtualized these mission critical applications on VMware are using VMware HA to provide HA for these applications. While this works fine in the case of the failure of the entire physical server or the virtual machine (VM) on which the application resides, if just the application fails, VMware offers no native mechanism to restart or recover the application or even detect that the application has failed.
Third, some organizations are leveraging operating system level clustering. While this approach works, it negates many of the advanced features available in VMware such as vMotion which is a major reason why organizations want to virtualize these business critical applications in the first place.

To help organizations overcome these objections to virtualizing their mission critical applications Symantec this week released ApplicationHA. ApplicationHA is installed on the virtual machine (VM) on which the application resides and does what VMware HA cannot do - it monitors the health of the application from within the VM.

In the event the application within the VM fails, ApplicationHA automatically tries to restart the application. If that fails, it sends a notification to vCenter so it can trigger a complete failover of the VM to another physical machine using VMware HA in an attempt to restart the application as quickly as possible.

Even if the VMware HA failover approach does not work, an alert now appears on the vCenter console that the application is having issues. This prompts an administrator to proactively begin to work on the problem rather than waiting for a call from an end user to report that the application is down.

The data center of the next decade is virtual and phase 1 in the transition to that environment is well under way and possibly even complete in some environments. But to go the final mile and virtualize their business critical applications means organizations need the right software so they can feel confident about completing this task.

Symantec ApplicationHA is a key technology to delivering on this promise. Symantec leverages its existing expertise in HA and application awareness, integrates with vCenter and VMware HA and it keeps its price very reasonable ($350/VM) considering that it is designed to support business critical applications.

It is for this reason that more organizations can look forward to completing phase one of their server virtualization initiatives using Symantec ApplicationHA and start to look anew at what further value that server virtualization can provide.

The Overland Storage N2000 Goes Rich in Features but Stays Sensitive in Price

2010-08-16T10:00:00Z

It is no secret that small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are still keeping their belts tight in the face of the economic slowdown that has occurred. This is forcing them to change how they do business which means bringing in the right technologies to make sure their employees can still get their work done. As they do, more are bound to find the Overland Storage SnapServer N2000 the right technology to help them meet this objective.

A survey produced by RingCentral, a self-described Internet phone service for small business, reports what most SMBs already know: it is becoming increasingly rare to have all of their employees in a single office.

Many SMBs are cutting back on office space and instead encouraging their employees to work offsite in their home or shared offices. In addition, many are leveraging part-time employees or contractors to do specialized or non-business critical tasks.

The challenge in this environment is that it becomes difficult to identify the right technology to accommodate the needs of this increasingly diverse and distributed workforce. One such challenge is identifying a storage solution that can securely store and share information between all of these different individuals so they can do their respective jobs but that does not break the budget of the SMB.

The common technology response to meeting this challenge is to use Network Attached Storage (NAS). However the trouble with using NAS in this new environment is that most NAS solutions that SMBs can afford are not really designed to meet these enterprise requirements.

Most NAS devices in their price range are consumer-grade in feature functionality. They have been primarily developed and marketed to individuals who are more concerned with storing the most recent iTune download or pictures from Aunt Suzie's birthday.

The type of NAS features that SMBs need - availability, flexibility, reliability, and scalability - are available but lack the one feature that they do need: affordability. To get enterprise features means they need to spend enterprise like dollars and most do not have $40K in their budget to purchase an enterprise caliber NAS solution that meet their higher end requirements. As a result they often settle for a sub $10K NAS solution that is more appropriately labeled as a consumer grade device.

The good news for SMBs is that they now have a new option. New to the sub $10K NAS market is the Overland Storage's SnapServer N2000. In addition to rounding out Overland Storage's own range of NAS solutions, it more importantly provides these SMBs the extra functionality that they have been looking for at a price point amenable to their budget.

The SnapServer N2000 offers:

A storage-optimized Linux platform. This is a feature an SMB is not apt to see on any other NAS appliances in this price range. The OS on the N2000 is GuardianOS is a 6th generation NAS operating system that is well beyond basic OSes found on other NAS appliances.

GuardianOS includes wizard driven menus that help guide SMBs through the installation and creation of storage volumes as well as offers a web-based management console to assist them in managing it.

By providing its own optimized operating system Overland is able to contain its costs and maintain complete control over the feature set on its NAS offerings. Other NAS platforms in this price range usually have pre-packaged OSes so they are subject to more limited feature sets plus they are forced to wait for the providing operating system vendor, such as Microsoft, to add desired or needed features, if they become available at all.

Storage flexibility and scalability. The base SnapServer N2000 unit comes with 4 drives though SMBs are not locked into a specific drive type. The N2000 gives SMBs the freedom to choose between either desktop or enterprise SATA drives in 1 and 2 TB capacities.

Further those SMBs that have performance sensitive applications such as Exchange or SharePoint can opt for lower capacity 300 or 600 GB SAS drives that support higher 15K RPM speeds. The N2000 also gives SMBs the flexibility to expand to a 12-drive system that can scale to as much as 144TB utilizing SnapServer E2000 expansion units if storage capacity is a concern.

Because SMBs are bound to have some applications that need both capacity (archiving or backups)and performance (Exchange Server, SQL Server, VMware) SMBs may mix both high performing SAS drives and higher capacity SATA drives in the same base system to meet these different application requirements.

Enterprise level system availability. The N2000 comes with the type of high availability features typically only found on enterprise NAS systems. It includes hot swappable drives, redundant power supplies and variable hot-swappable fans.

Complete integration with either Microsoft Windows or UNIX environments. A Linux based platform is sometimes a red flag to SMB users. But unlike other NAS solutions in this price range that use Linux, GuardianOS does not use kludgy workarounds to integrate with Microsoft environments.

It is fully compatible with Microsoft Active Directory Services (ADS) as well as UNIX Network Information Service (NIS) so it can be managed as other network devices and information securely shared using accepted and understood network security standards.

Centralized management and DR. SMBs have the same needs for instant backup and recovery as well as disaster recovery that enterprises have. The SnapServer N2000 has a robust feature set to deliver on these requirements to include replication, snapshot functionality at both the file and block levels, and the ability to manage multiple SnapServer devices from its integrated SnapServer Manager console.

Priced right for SMBs. The SnapServer N2000 is available immediately with configurations starting at $4,999 MSRP. Also, for a limited time, Overland is offering a "Double Your Capacity" promotion that enables companies to purchase a 4TB N2000 and receive a free upgrade to an 8TB solution.

No one disputes that times are tough but necessity is the mother of invention and the continuing tough economic climate is spurring needed innovation in this entry level of the storage market. The SnapServer N2000 is one such example.

Overland Storage brings forward its already mature GuardianOS software, adds in enterprise storage system features like multiple tiers of storage, high availability and support for mixed workloads, and stays price sensitive in the process. This means that SMBs that have developed enterprise-like storage requirements but thought they needed to purchase a consumer grade storage system now have a storage solution that is built and priced specifically for them.

Mid-Summer 2010 Storage Trends

2010-08-13T14:00:00Z

Usually everyone waits until the end of the year to talk about trends in the storage industry but being fully in the throes of the dog days of summer here in Omaha, I thought I would use this week's weekly recap blog entry to reflect on some of the trends that are taking place in 2010. In doing so, I looked back to a blog entry that I wrote in January 2010 where I forecast six subtle storage trends for 2010 to see how right (or wrong) I was on my predictions. Turns out I was more right than I anticipated but I have encountered some trends that I did not expect.

To recap the 6 major trends that I forecast for 2010 back in January were:

Emergence of disk-based backup 2.0
Continuous data protection (CDP) will start to compete with more traditional backup and recovery approaches
Thin provisioning will continue to get the nod over deduplication on high end primary storage systems
Archiving in all of its forms will gather momentum in 2010
Cloud storage will be the most talked about non-adopted trend of 2010
Organizations are finally getting serious about data management

To these, I would now like to add two more:

A rebound in DAS
Rapid growth in virtual server backup software

So how have I done year to date on my original predictions?

Based upon what I am seeing, it seems like I am hitting 5 of the 6 right on the mark.

Disk-based backup 2.0 has been a killer business this year and nowhere is this more evident than with EMC Data Domain. The storage industry is abuzz with how well Data Domain has done ever since EMC acquired them - probably even better than EMC expected - and it goes to testify just what a powerhouse EMC is in the storage industry. Say what you will about EMC, many companies still don't make a move on their storage decision until their EMC account rep first puts his blessing on it and now with Data Domain a viable option in every storage deal that EMC has out there, Data Domain is blowing the doors off of many of EMC's deals.

This is not to say that Data Domain has not done its part in helping to make this happen. As I mentioned in my January blog entry, high availability and replication were going to be instrumental features in delivering on disk-based backup 2.0.

In that vein, Data Domain earlier this year introduced its Global Deduplication Array to address this enterprise concern plus it has also introduced its DD Boost which is putting it head-to-head with the likes of CommVault Simpana and Symantec NetBackup which will serve to shortly give the EMC NetWorker software and sales a real boost as well.

I thought I was going out on a limb in saying that CDP was going to take off in 2010 but of all of my predictions, I am now getting the sense that 2010 may setup CDP to be THE technology craze of 2011. Managed service providers are eating this technology up because backups AND RECOVERIES just work so they can focus on delivering whatever recovery point and recovery time objectives that their clients want. Further, I see CDP as being a key enabling technology to moving data in (and out) of the cloud as well as facilitating near-instantaneous recoveries into public storage clouds.

While I am seeing some uptick in adoption in cloud storage in 2010 (maybe more so than I anticipated when I predicted it would be the most talked about non-adopted trend in 2010), I partly attribute this to the accelerating adoption rate of CDP.

Because CDP makes it so much easier to get data in and out of the cloud, I now see the adoption of cloud storage moving forward more quickly than I first anticipated. However many organizations still have reservations about the security and accessibility of their data when placed in the cloud as well as the viability of the providers that are storing the data so this will continue to throttle its adoption near term.

Thin provisioing is now a feature found almost universally on all storage arrays - certainly on all high end array and on most midrange arrays. Meanwhile the adoption of deduplication on primary storage continues to languish. While there has certainly been some progress in this area most notably Dell's recent announcement that it was going to acquire Ocarina Networks, I so far see only two other storage vendors other than NetApp being serious about making deduplication a reality in 2010. One is WhipTail Technologies which already is doing so with the introduction of the Exar Hifn BitWackr card on its system and the other is Compellent which indicated at its Spring 2010 C-Drive conference that it plans to introduce deduplication sometime this year.

My comments about how archiving will gain momentum in 2010 seems to be holding true. While I struggle to point to anything specific in support of this statement, it is more anecdotal evidence at this point that suggests that this is occurring. Hopefully I can point to more specific facts by the end of the year.

My final prediction that organizations would get serious about data management continues to be reflected in conversations that I have with end-users. As their issues around backup get resolved, it is freeing their time to turn their attention to better managing their data.

Further, as I blogged in another entry a few weeks ago, the disparity between the "have's" (those who are doing data management) and the "have not's" (those who are not doing data management) is growing with those organizations that can better manage their data seeing a decided uptick in employee efficiency and productivity which is resulted in real savings.

So what two trends did I miss?

One that I did not anticipate was the number of organizations that are reverting back and/or staying with using direct attached storage (DAS). Is it less efficient than networked storage? Yes. Is it harder to deliver capacity where you need when you need it? No doubt.

So why is it sticking around and possibly even gaining momentum? As near as I can tell, it is a fraction of the cost of networked storage so organizations are living with its inefficiency and management difficulties for the simple reason that it is cheap.

Case in point, I purchased a new 500 GB internal hard drive for my PC just a month ago for $52.99. So with economy remaining tight and administrators having more time than money on their hands, they are cobbling together servers and cheap hard drives like this one to provide needed storage for their applications. Is this the "best" way to do it from a management and optimal use perspective? I would say no. But when faced with a choice between having an optimal storage setup or losing their job, many are opting to keep their job and get by with less than an optimal storage setup in anticipation of fixing the situation when the economy improves.

The final trend I missed out on was the rapid growth of backup software specifically designed for virtual servers. Companies like PHD Virtual, Vizioncore and Veeam continue to tear it up despite all of the experts saying that backup software is "mature" or "an area of flat or no growth". I have a feeling these companies would strongly disagree with that assessment.

I am even getting feedback that their rapid growth even has the major enterprise backup players worried because they are getting footholds in one of the most rapidly expanding areas within enterprises and have relationships with the emerging power center within companies - the virtual server admins. Frankly I would not be surprised to see some of these emerging players acquired in the coming years by the traditional enterprise backup players as a means to protect their turf.

You can also look to learn more about who these companies are and who the leading players are in this space in a few months when DCIG and SMB Research publish their first Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide in the fall 2010 which will cover over 20 vendors and their products.

That's it for this week! Have a great weekend and check back with DCIG again next week for the latest happenings in the storage space.

Symantec's Dynamic Multi-Pathing Software Now Available with No Strings Attached

2010-08-11T10:00:00Z

Multi-pathing software is considered such an integral component for delivering high availability, load balancing, path failover and path management that few organizations can envision deploying a server on a FC or iSCSI SAN without having this software in place. But for such a critical piece of software, multi-pathing software still has its detractors. Among their complaints is the lack of availability of a multi-pathing software solution with no strings attached.

Broadly speaking, multi-pathing software can be divided into three (3) buckets:

Storage system vendor provided multi-pathing software. Storage system providers often make available their own multi-pathing software that works on a variety of operating systems. The upside of using their multi-pathing software is that it often has features that take advantage of advanced features on their storage array.

The catch is that their software only works with their storage systems (or possibly a limited number of storage systems from other providers) so creating heterogeneous storage environments is NOT feasible.

Operating system vendor provided multi-pathing software. The exact opposite is true when using the native multi-pathing software found on operating systems. This software is handy in that it is often included for free with the OS plus it supports heterogeneous storage environments and works with any vendor's storage system.

The downside with using this software is that it only works on that OS so each OS has its own multi-pathing solution. This becomes problematic from a support perspective as organizations need to verify that all storage systems work with the multi-pathing software from each OS they have in use.

Further, there is no management software that I am aware of that enables administrators to centrally manage all of these disparate multi-pathing solutions. This forces administrators to log into each server or management console for each OS to manage each multi-pathing solution.

Symantec Storage Foundation with Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP). DMP has always been the Cadillac of multi-pathing software solutions in that it is both operating system and storage system agnostic. Organizations could deploy DMP on almost any OS and use it with nearly any storage system as it supports over 1000 models at last count. DMP can also be centrally managed across all of these different servers using Veritas Operations Manager.

The main knock on DMP to date was that in order to use it organizations also had to install Symantec's Veritas Storage Foundation and the Veritas File System (VxFS). Installing these additional layers was not always possible or practical on existing application servers since they could not always justify their deployment in order to use DMP.

Symantec's decision to decouple DMP from its parent Storage Foundation puts that concern to rest. Currently, a standalone version of DMP is available for Solaris, AIX and Red Hat and SuSe Linux. Beginning in Q4 2010, Symantec will also make DMP available as a standalone product for HP-UX and Windows. This now frees customers to deploy DMP without a requirement to first deploy Storage Foundation or VxFS.

In talking to Symantec, its internal testing reveals that to install this standalone version of the DMP software will take about 15 - 30 minutes per server for two reasons.

First, most organizations are already running some form of multi-pathing software. Organizations will need to install DMP onto a server, take the existing multi-pathing software out of the environment and then complete the switch to DMP.

Second, multi-pathing software like DMP is a kernel application so a reboot is required. The length of the downtime for individual applications will be a combination of the time it takes to install and configure DMP and then reboot the server.

A true heterogeneous solution that worked across both server and storage environments has always been largely restricted to DMP. However the one concern that users raised - the requirement to first deploy Veritas Storage Foundation and the Veritas File System (VxFS) - has limited DMP's broader adoption in many environments
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Symantec's decision to decouple DMP from Storage Foundation and make it a standalone product removes that objection of some detractors. Now DMP provides organizations a multi-pathing software solution that offers support for nearly every OS and storage system that they may have.

But even as Symantec removed the strings requiring organizations to deploy Storage Foundation in order to use DMP, what was equally as important is that it left in place the strings that organizations want DMP to have. Users may still leverage Symantec's freely available Veritas Operations Manager to centrally discover and manage all of the DMP implementations across servers in their environment. In so doing, organizations gain the advanced visibility and reporting about that they want in their multi-pathing environments while removing one of the last objections that they may have to its deployment.

The New Deduplication Debate: Where to Draw the Line on Deduplication

2010-08-09T10:00:00Z

Not that many years ago the debate around how to best deduplicate data centered on inline versus post processing deduplication as data was archived or backed up. While that debate still simmers, a new one is brewing that was spurred in part by the recent announcement that Dell plans to acquire Ocarina Networks. This one touches on where organizations should draw the line on data deduplication.

In the last couple of years the business case for deduplicating archive and backup data, which is characterized by high levels of redundancy and infrequent access, has clearly been made. As organizations look to use disk as their primary target and/or medium for archive and backup, data deduplication drives down the cost of disk to the point where it is as economical as tape while providing the benefits of disk (successful backups and recoveries and less time to complete them).

But as one looks to move deduplication up the stack into primary storage such as what Dell is apparently looking to do by adding Ocarina Networks' technology to its line of EqualLogic storage system, where to draw the line on what data to deduplicate can start to get a little hazy. While introducing deduplication onto primary storage systems can certainly reduce data stores and ultimately lower storage costs, there is no guarantee that deduplication is appropriate for all data residing on primary storage.

DCIG analyst James Koopmann argued that one form of data that organizations would be wise not to use the storage system deduplication feature is data found in databases. Databases that are properly designed deduplicate the data stored in them as a matter of course using a technique called normalization. This is done to eliminate the redundancies that otherwise creep into database as well as to facilitate quick retrieval of information.

Koopmann even argues that if a storage system vendor promises that it can reduce the storage capacity used by a database through deduplication then the database administrator should be concerned about the quality of the underlying database design. He say, "Reducing the storage requirements for databases through deduplication just puts a Band-Aid on this problem and does not address the real issue."

However proper use cases for introducing deduplication on primary storage do exist and it is one of these that is driving Dell's interest in Ocarina networks. The two best use cases I have heard to date for using deduplication on primary storage is on file servers and in virtualized server environments.

In the first use case, deduplicating data on file servers, it is unclear how Dell may leverage Ocarina's technology. While Ocarina Networks technology has the ability to do this, Dell does not really play in the enterprise NAS space so whatever benefits that Ocarina Networks provides to Dell is this regards appear to be merely coincidental at this point in time.

The second use case, deduplicating virtualized server images, appears to be the logicrole that Ocarina Networks will eventually fulfill within Dell. Dell's EqualLogic storage systems are known if for nothing else their ability to deliver iSCSI SANs and iSCSI as a protocol is wildly popular in virtualized server environments right now.

So Dell's decision to acquire Ocarina Networks only makes sense since up to 90% of the data in virtualized server images may be redundant. Deduplicating these virtual server images reduces the amount of virtual server data stored and should serve to improve performance of virtual machines since their images can now be more easily and economically stored on high performance storage from Dell such as its PS6010XVS.

But as deduplication finds its way onto more primary storage systems it does not mean that organizations should redraw the line of how they use deduplication within their environment to exclude archive and backup.

CommVault's Dave West makes the point in a recent blog entry that copies of data used in archive and backup as well as for compliance and replication consume orders of magnitude more storage capacity than what the original copy of data on primary storage consumes. This is a problem that deduplication on primary storage does not solve. Rather he argues that using software to deduplicate data across all tiers to include disk, tape and even emerging storage clouds such as CommVault does slashes storage costs and is key to optimizing storage space and performance across the entire storage infrastructure.

Deduplication is appearing at almost every level of the storage stack and, as it does, the line that enterprises draw as to what data is deduplicated is clearly moving up the stack to now include such applications as file services and server virtualization.

However organizations should not confuse the growing use of deduplication on primary storage as a replacement for proper storage management practices. The introduction of deduplication on primary storage moves the line but does eliminate the need for it where it is already used. If anything because deduplication will enable so much more data to be efficiently stored on primary storage, the need for a comprehensive software-based deduplication solution such as what CommVault offers may be greater now than ever before.

DCIG Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide Moves Closer to Reality

2010-08-06T13:00:00Z

For this Friday's weekly recap blog entry I asked my colleague Robert "Bob" Eastman over at SMB Research, LLC, to write it for me. Bob along with Miles Prescott, the other half of the SMB Research team, are collaborating with DCIG to help produce the forthcoming Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide that we have planned for publication in October 2010.

While I am giving them some guidance on how to construct and format the Buyer's Guide, Bob and Miles are leading the charge on the research and doing the heavy lifting in preparing this Buyer's Guide. That being the case, I thought it only appropriate to permit Bob take front and center this week on DCIG's blog site so as to provide everyone an update on the progress we are making.

Bob, take it away ....

Thanks Jerome

As DGIC's Jerome Wendt wrote here several weeks ago, a Virtual Server Backup Software Buyers Guide is on its way for delivery later this year (targeting October 2010). Miles Prescott and I, from Boston-based SMB Research LLC are collaborating with DGIC on this project.

Vendors and end-users alike should find this Buyers Guide to be invaluable.

For Vendors:

DGIC's Server Virtualization Backup Software Buyers Guide is a chance for you to immediately increase your visibility, which of course leads to more at-bats, closing more deals and shortening the sales cycle. (Just ask DGIC's Jim Nash or Jerome about the results that those who came out on top in the 2010 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide that DCIG released in May 2010 have seen.)

This Buyers Guide will show end-users the company you are keeping in this category, and will make it easier for end-users to see the features that differentiate your solution. Vendors should find this to be an excellent reference, marketing and prospecting tool as well as a 'sales accelerator'.

For End-Users:

This DGIC Buyers Guide will be an excellent reference for you as well. The Guide will contain a comprehensive look at the virtual server backup software landscape (we have identified over 20 products in this space). It will provide a top-level look at the solutions in this category, a standardized set of datasheets about each product illustrating what features they do and do not have, and then help you to better understand the features and functions that differentiate one vendor from another.

But virtual server backup software is also an emerging area. As such, emerging technology areas breed confusion (you know, the proverbial FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt). Where there is confusion, there are end-users struggling to find the right solution even as software vendors are struggling to get their software into the right hands in the most effective and efficient way possible. This Buyer's Guide should help both users and vendors in that endeavor.

Some Early Ideas and Observations about the Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide:

This buyers Guide will be comprehensive. Doing this the right way means including all of the vendors in the space, not just the vendors who are willing to "pay to play" their way into the Buyers Guide. We will not ask any vendor to pay their way into any DCIG Virtual Server Backup Software Buyers Guide. We think this will make the resulting Buyer's Guide better for everyone.

A questionnaire is being sent to all vendors to complete about their product. Vendor products are changing quickly with new releases coming out almost every six months so we want this Buyer's Guide to be as accurate and up-to-date as possible. To do that, every vendor included in the Buyer's Guide is being sent a questionnaire which is going out next week in mass.

This will help us and you document and understand the fundamentally different ways that virtual server backups are done because each product supports different host operating systems as well as different virtual operating systems. Further, some of these solutions come with and without appliances. (Backup appliances will the focus of a future buyers Guide). While all of these variables make it more difficult to research and write a one-size-fits-all Virtual Server Backup Software Buyers Guide, we can only imagine the gyrations users are going through trying to pick a product that meets their needs..

I am quickly discovering that different vendors use the same term to mean different things, and some vendors use different terms to mean the same thing. Does 'differential backup' mean the same thing to each vendor? Do live' backup, 'dynamic' backup and 'hot' backup mean the same thing, and mean the same to each vendor? We should be able to contribute some consistency and clarity in this Buyers Guide normalizing these terms and providing some insight into what we (and the vendors) are talking about in this regards.

Vendors, while you are charging ahead with your technology, don't forget to pay some attention to the business side. Make it easy for end-users to find you and find out how to reach you, and you obviously get more at-bats with the end-user. In putting this Buyer's Guide together, we are seeing more than a few speed bumps: missing, or outdated contact information on websites, challenging dial-by-name systems, outdated PR firm information, and the like.

(Now could be a great time to do an audit of how easy it is for a prospect to find you and contact you. Miles and I see a see a 'Best Practices' article in the making. After spending a combined 25+ years at AMR Research - now Gartner - talking to end-users and vendors about software and technology solutions, we have some ideas here....check back with us.)

Once this Buyers Guide is complete we expect it to be better than anything else you can find in the market and for it to help users make more sense of the virtual server backup software space than almost anything else you have seen to-date or is publicly available

I would enjoy very much hearing your feedback via comment on this blog entry. You may also email me at reastman@smbresearch.net.

Information Management Health Check Survey Reveals Corporate Need to Transition to Deal with Infinite Retention

2010-08-04T10:00:00Z

Backup problems are supposed to be gone, right? All you have to do is throw in some disk and a good dose of deduplication and organizational backup problems will magically disappear. So while that may be true up to a point, today's newly released Information Management Health Check survey conducted by Applied Research and sponsored by Symantec reveals that organizations are failing to take into account the implications of what infinite backup retention periods mean for them long term.

Over the last few years, disk-based backup done in conjunction with deduplication has been dangled in front of users as a short cut to fixing their backup problems. In that respect, it has delivered on its promise. Environments with disk-based backup report that their backup jobs complete successfully over 99% of the time, finish within designated backup windows and consume less disk storage capacity as a result of their use of deduplication.

That is the good news. The bad news is that organizations are failing to recognize that they need to shift gears regarding the management of the information that these backups contain. Because even though backups are completing successfully and on time, organizations have been grown accustomed over the years to keeping all of their backup data forever or using backups as a substitute for an archive.

This organizational mindset became a bit clearer based upon the responses from nearly 1700 enterprise organizations and released in today's Information Management Health Check report. The survey revealed that most organizations are still clinging to these practices as it found:

75% of data in backups are configured for infinite retention or are on legal hold
25% of the data in these backups is not needed and can be deleted
70% of these organizations perform legal holds using backup
25% of respondents preserve entire backup sets to satisfy the conditions of a legal hold even though only specific files or documents in the backup data set may be needed
Enterprises cited that, on average, 40% of information placed on legal hold is not specifically relevant for that litigation.
45% of the backup storage in these organizations comes from legal holds

These organizational practices of over retaining backup data sets or using backup data sets in lieu of an archive are somewhat understandable. Years of unpredictable backup success rates have conditioned organizations to "play it safe" and keep all good backup data sets indefinitely.

Yet today's environment where backups complete successfully has more than negated the need for these legacy organizational practices; it has made them hazardous to the economic health of organizations in three distinct ways.

Over retention of backup data. Deduplication has made it easier for companies to justify keeping their backup data on disk for indefinite periods of time because of this data's smaller footprint on disk. But even deduplicated backup data sets grow. So by keeping all backup data indefinitely, eventually more capacity will be needed to store it that will result in increased storage costs. Further, organizations now often replicate this data to a secondary site for disaster recovery so more storage capacity is also needed at that site which adds more cost.

Poor archiving methodology. Just because organizations use backup data sets as an archive does not mean that these backup data sets are well suited to function as an archive especially when it comes time to look for data in these archives. This was illustrated in a separate survey done in the spring of 2009 that revealed employees in financial and public sector jobs spend almost 20% of their time searching for information that is located in inaccessible repositories like backup data sets.

eDiscovery exposure. Organizations are bound to retain data that is subject to legal holds or to remain in compliance with laws or statutes governing their industry. However if the conditions of the legal hold are lifted or the time frame specified by the statute met, keeping data longer than required only serves to expose that organization to unforeseen liabilities in the future should they be subject to an eDiscovery request.

The results of this Information Management Health Check survey should serve as a wake-up call to organizations that how they view the management of information in general and how they manage backups specifically needs to change.

Their historical focus on managing the backup process itself (backup jobs, backup windows, etc.) is no less needed as the introduction of disk-based backup and deduplication into the backup process has largely solved that problem. But what this does mean is that they need to refocus on how to optimally manage the information contained in their backup data sets.

To help organizations do this Symantec has made a website available for organizations that they can access. Once there they can complete a survey to see how they stack up against the 1680 companies included in the Information Management Health Check survey and, after completing the survey, they will get a copy of the report along with a few pointers on what they might do next.

For some, it may be taking the initial steps of putting an information management and retention strategy in place. Others who are further down the road and have already put a plan in place and solved their immediate backup problems may be ready for next steps such as putting in place an information management and retention solution such as what Symantec's Enterprise Vault offers.

However regardless of where an organization is at, about the biggest mistake it can make is to do assume that its information management problems will solve themselves. As this survey suggests, new technologies such as disk-based backup and deduplication are making traditional backup problems disappear. But as they do, organizations need to adopt a new mindset of optimally managing all of their information no matter where it resides.

3PAR Responds to Market Plea for Better Method to Implement and Manage Replication

2010-08-03T12:00:00Z

Enterprise storage array replication software is rarely accused of being "user-friendly" or "simple to manage". If anything, exactly the opposite is true with users grumbling about the engineering resources and professional services required to implement it and then the level of end-user knowledge and skill needed to manage it. But with IT budgets and staffs staying lean even as server virtualization and cloud storage adoption is taking off, it was time for someone to give the face of enterprise replication software a much needed make-over which is exactly what 3PAR delivered today.

It has always been unclear to me why anyone thinks a CLI interface like this one:

is preferential to a GUI interface like this new one that 3PAR made available today.:

Click on image to see it in its entirety in another window.

Granted, there are reasons that enterprise organizations want, need and may even prefer CLI interfaces over GUI interfaces from time to time. I know I used CLI interfaces when I needed to make changes on a large scale by first scripting the changes that I was going to make so I could first document and then test the changes before making them live in production. But on a day-to-day basis as I did my routine storage system administration tasks, I wanted to visualize my environment.

However this concept of using a CLI to manage replication between enterprise storage arrays seems rather arcane in 2010. If anything, if there ever was an application crying out for a GUI interface, replication would be it as replication minimally involves the sending and receiving of critical application data between two storage systems in different locations over LAN and/or WAN links.

Further replication tends to be a more static activity such that once it is set up it generally changes very little. As a result, those administrators responsible for configuring replication face a potentially steep learning curve out of the gate as they learn how to use it. Then once it is setup, they may not come back and manage it for a few days, weeks or even months so they have to recall what they did last time.

It is for reasons like these that 3PAR today released a GUI to help users visually manage its Remote Copy Software on either its T-class or F-class InServ Storage Servers. While 3PAR has for some time offered its Remote Copy software for both its high end T-class and midrange F-Class storage servers that could replicate data between any of these models, it was configured and managed using a CLI.

That is no longer the case. By 3PAR added support for its Remote Copy replication software to its InForm Management Console GUI, administrators can now setup and manage any of the four replication modes that Remote Copy supports including 1:1, 1:N; N:1 and Synchronous Long Distance (SyncLD).

A beta version of this GUI was on display at the recent 3PAR Analyst Days back in June 2010. One of the more notable features that 3PAR demonstrated at that time was the ability for administrators to use its InForm Management Console GUI to setup, configure and test replication between two of its systems in about 10 minutes. Considering this is the high end of the storage space where the time to setup and configure replication software is often measured in days, weeks or months, this is no small feat.

A second feature that 3PAR added into this release of its InForm Management Console was a change in how it displays information that it is responsible for managing. As you can see below, as administrators navigate the management console they select an area that they are managing (in this case, the Remote Copy Feature) and the majority of the screen on the management console is then dedicated to displaying information germane to that selection.

Click on image to see it in its entirety in another window.

This is important in replication as it gives users the ability to visualize such items as:

What systems are configured for replication
What data is being replicated
What are the primary and second volumes
The direction in which the data is being replicated between systems
Whether the replication is synchronous or asynchronous
How the replication is configured - 1:1, 1:N, N:1 or SyncLD

The final major enhancement that 3PAR made in this release was to help administrators shorten their learning and/or remembering curves when setting up, configuring or managing replication. As an administrator clicks on a specific feature and accesses the screen associated with it, 3PAR will present the administrator with a pop-up window that shows the most common actions that an administrator is likely to perform while using that feature along with instructions on how to use it.

3PAR has since its inception been one of the leaders in providing storage systems that have enterprise caliber hardware and software minus the complexity associated with managing them. Now 3PAR again draws upon that heritage by heeding market pleas for a simpler, easier way to setup, configure and manage replication on its storage systems using its InForm Management Console GUI. In so doing, 3PAR makes it possible and practical for almost any organization to look to implement and manage replication without it consuming all of their IT staff's time and professional services budget to support and manage it.

EMC NetWorker and Data Domain Poised to Make Disk-based Enterprise Backup a Turnkey Experience

2010-08-02T10:00:00Z

Simple. Easy. Automated. Those words are used so frequently to describe product features that users have become almost universally cynical about any product's ability to actually deliver on them. So it came as a pleasant surprise to discover the number of new features that EMC NetWorker plans to introduce in 2H10 to make the management of Data Domain systems the turnkey experience that enterprise backup shops expect.

Those who are new to disk-based backup rightly conclude that many of the problems historically linked to tape-based backup and recovery diminish significantly once disk is introduced into the backup environment. But once the initial benefits are realized, the long term challenges associated with managing disk-based backup and the various forms of replication it provides begin to surface. For example:

Managing the disk-based appliance itself. The disk-based system itself needs to be managed. Disk drives, fans and power supplies can fail. File systems may fill up. Snapshots need to be deleted. Enterprise organizations want to use their backup software to monitor and report on these issues.
Replicating data. Backup data may need to be replicated to another like disk-based system off-site, copied off to tape, or some combination of both. Yet unless the backup software integrates with the disk-based system, administrators may have to resort to using the disk system's GUI to manage these tasks.

It is automating the initial setup and configuration of an EMC Data Domain system as well as enabling the ongoing management of Data Domain systems and the replication of data between Data Domain systems that EMC NetWorker looks to accomplish as part of its release in the latter half of 2010.

Based upon a demo that EMC recently took me through (which was the same demo that EMC also conducted with many attendees at a session at its recent 2010 EMC World), here are just a few of the benefits that NetWorker users who upgrade to the latest version of NetWorker, deploy Data Domain systems and take advantage of the new Data Domain Boost (DD Boost) should expect to realize.

First, a new NetWorker wizard can do the initial setup and configuration of individual EMC Data Domain appliances. While using Data Domain's GUI to setup an EMC Data Domain appliance that is new to an organization's backup environment is fairly straightforward, adding a wizard makes this task one that is a documentable and repeatable process from within NetWorker.

This wizard takes advantage of the DD Boost software feature that serves as a common interface to Data Domain's systems - its Appliance Series, the DDX Array and the Global Deduplication Array (GDA). Leveraging DD Boost, NetWorker will be able to discover a new or existing Data Domain system, configure folders on it, and then designate which of these folders are to be added to an existing or new NetWorker backup pool. (NetWorker by default creates a new backup pool for Data Domain systems.)

Second, NetWorker can use SNMP to monitor and then generate alerts as to the status of the Data Domain system(s). Data Domain systems make available a variety of SNMP options which NetWorker will leverage to monitor, trap and generate alerts as to the condition of a specific Data Domain system. There are 25 SNMP traps on Data Domain systems that NetWorker can capture with the choice of which alerts to trap left to the discretion of the backup administrator and/or organization to select.

Specific SNMP options that NetWorker administrators may want to trap include: disk, fan module, NVRAM and power supply failures; the need for file system maintenance; file system failures; inoperable cluster interfaces or cluster nodes; replication between two (or more) Data Domain systems that is not synchronizing; or, when a full snapshot queue. As these messages are captured, they are populated within the NetWorker console and incorporated into NetWorker's overall management and reporting structure.

Third, NetWorker can take advantage of the advanced replication features that exist on a Data Domain system for improved performance. As NetWorker creates backup copies (or clones as it refers to them) on a Data Domain system using DD Boost, NetWorker will be aware that these clones reside on a Data Domain system.

So now as NetWorker goes to initiate a job of replicating data from one Data Domain system to another, NetWorker no longer has to do the copy itself. Rather it will call and leverage Data Domain's native replication software to copy the data from the source to the target system without the need for scripting or command line interfaces as other backup software products may still require which makes it easier to deploy.

The added benefit that this will bring to NetWorker shops is that once an initial copy of data is complete, the Data Domain system will only need to replicate the differences or deltas that exist from one backup job to the next. Further, since NetWorker will manage both the source and target Data Domain systems, the target Data Domain system will let NetWorker know that all replicated data has been successfully received.

Fourth, NetWorker will be able to create separate retention polices for each clone. Leveraging the DD Boost software, NetWorker will be able to manage and set retention policies on individual clones on each Data Domain system. This will include clones that are replicas on either the source or target Data Domain systems.

This ability to set retention policies on any clone will enable NetWorker administrators to perform such tasks as expiring clones on the source system after some period of time (day, week, month, year, etc.) without its replicated copy also being set to expire at the same time. In this way, replicas can be independently managed and kept for purposes such as archival or legal holds.

EMC also claims that there will no practical limits to the number of clones that can be created with their retention policies. In other words, NetWorker can create "N" number of clones on "N" number of Data Domain systems with the ability for any clone to have its own retention policy.

The forthcoming integration between NetWorker and Data Domain that enables such basic functions such as discovering and configuring new Data Domain systems or capturing SNMP traps may seem like minor points to some. Conversely, other announced enhancements such as managing Data Domain's replication software and setting specific retention policies for multiple clones on multiple Data Domain systems are substantial advancements in NetWorker's management capabilities of Data Domain systems.

However all of these advancements in the upcoming release of NetWorker reflect how Data Domain is evolving to become a solution that can be successfully introduced and managed by enterprise shops. Enterprise organizations want their backup software to deliver basic management capabilities (alerting, discovery, configuration and reporting) out of the chute while offering them the foundation to configure and manage both replication and individual retention policies on clones. EMC says the new version of NetWorker will deliver on these types of features and is already demonstrating them.

Yet it is this type of integration - the routine as well as the advanced - within the forthcoming release of NetWorker that indicates Data Domain systems are poised for broad enterprise adoption. While delivering on other characteristics such as successful backups and high performance are certainly important, the enhanced integration that NetWorker will provide for Data Domain systems means that Data Domain systems can more easily slide into existing NetWorker environments with the deployment, configuration and ongoing management of Data Domain systems as automated and simple as enterprises expect them to be.

Why CDP is Taking over at MSPs

2010-07-30T13:30:00Z

One of the privileges I get in being contracted to do blogging is that I get to speak to customers to which others rarely get access. One set of customers that I frequently speak with are managed service providers (MSPs) and discuss with them what technologies that they are having success with in their data centers. So this is why I can say with a high degree of certainty that continuous data protection (CDP) is taking over within their data centers and is shaping up to have a high impact as enterprise organizations look to move their applications and application data into the cloud.

CDP is an advanced form of asynchronous replication software that was heralded as recently as a few years ago as the next generation of data protection and it was believed at that time that every enterprise backup software product was going to need it "or else".

Since then about every enterprise backup software product (CommVault Simpana, EMC NetWorker, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, Symantec NetBackup) added some form of CDP to their product portfolio. Yet, in my conversations with them, CDP has not become the game changing technology in their portfolios that many thought it was going to be. Deduplication instead claimed that distinction.

But that does not mean CDP has been left for dead. Rather it has found a new and abundant life in the data centers of MSPs. Here is why that appears to be the case.

First, MSPs are in many cases starting from scratch and do not have a legacy tape backup infrastructure. As a result, they are not trying to solve problems like slow or failed backups to tape that typical enterprise organizations are trying to solve since MSPs never implemented tape in the first place. Since MSPs are not starting out in from the perspective of once-a-day backups, their viewpoint of backup and recovery tends to be totally different than most organizations.

Second, MSPs are laser focused on recovery and fast recoveries at that. This does not mean they do not care about backup - they do. However in my conversations with MSPs who use CDP products from providers like InMage and R1Soft, their backup jobs do not fail, at least not 99% or more of the time. This makes CDP ideally suited for their environments because MSPs are measured by their customers on not just successful backups but how quickly and economically they can recover applications and/or application data.

Those MSPs that use either InMage or R1Soft are able to do recoveries (even bare metal restores) in as quickly as 30 minutes or less. InMage even advertises "push-button failovers" which I know at least one of its MSPs is well down the road towards delivering.

Third, MSPs are not distracted with delivering other backup features. If you look at most enterprise backup software products, they are evolving into broader data management software that enterprises use for archiving, legal discovery and search. So while these products typically offer a CDP option, this feature is not their core competency.

MSPs rarely if ever have to deal with these issues. Their customers primarily want them to backup applications; recover application data or an application that the customer directs the MSP to restore; or, maybe recover the customer's entire data center should a disaster strike. Otherwise their customers prefer the MSP know as little about their application data as possible.

These restrictions make InMage's and R1Soft's CDP technology well-suited for MSP environments. Their CDP products are lean and mean in the sense that they do not have the data management "bloat" that enterprise backup software products have been forced over the years to develop and incorporate into their products to satisfy their existing enterprise customer base.

Fourth, MSPs love how easy the CDP products from both InMage and R1Soft are to scale and manage. Both InMage and R1Soft have fairly well developed formulas and architectures for how many servers each of their CDP and Control servers can backup and recover so it makes it relatively predictable for MSPs to plan and budget for new growth as they add on new clients.

Fifth, MSPs find both InMage and R1Soft easy to integrate. Both InMage and R1Soft offer APIs that MSPs can access such that they can monitor and manage their products from central consoles that they incorporate into their broader data center management strategy.

Sixth, MSPs can do any-to-any restores. While server virtualization and cloud-based backup are the major reasons that MSPs are experiencing the success that they are, they still need to do physical-to-physical, physical-to-virtual, virtual-to-virtual and virtual-to-physical backups and restores so they need solutions that can support those requirements. Both of these products are designed to handle these requirements.

Finally, these two products "just" do CDP. Sometimes less is more and that is certainly the case with MSPs as they look to take on new customers and do so cost-efficiently without the need to add on more staff as they grow. These two products are quick to implement, introduce minimal amounts of overhead on the servers they protect and provide the results that MSPs and their customers want.

Ever since I first wrote about CDP a few years ago for Storage magazine I have always wondered why CDP was not more widely adopted. Now I know that some CDP products were highly specialized while others still had some kinks that needed to be worked out.

Those days are largely in the past and while some CDP products are still highly specialized, others like those from InMage and R1Soft have evolved very nicely and are finding a good fit among a technologically savvy and rapidly growing part of the enterprise data center space - MSPs.

Using CDP, these MSPs start with the assumption that backups work and are given the luxury to adopt a laser-like focus on recovery. As such, they can select CDP solutions from providers such as those from InMage and R1Soft that are sufficiently mature and are tailored to meet the specific requirements that MSPs and their customers have for speedy deployments, reliable backups, fast recoveries, easy scaling and low management overhead.

More importantly to MSPs and their customers, they can deliver these services in such a highly efficient way that going forward CDP is going to become an integral technology in terms of why these companies will look to MSPs to move more of their applications and application data into private and public storage clouds.

Note: Both InMage and R1Soft are DCIG blogging clients but did not pay DCIG to write this blog entry on their behalf.

Can Fibre Channel (FC) Go the Distance?

2010-07-29T15:00:00Z

I have been a long running Fibre Channel (FC) enthusiast since I deployed my first two SAN switches back in 1999 but it seems that since then basic facts about FC have gotten lost along the way. We can all get caught up in the hoopla of new and slick storage technology features and lose sight of some the most important and basic details that keep our storage fabrics up and humming.

Among these are the Fibre Channel cabling infrastructures and the distance limitations incurred by continued increases in FC speeds. These are the ones that can be easily, but inappropirately, overlooked inside the data center.

In Base-2 deployments of Fibre Channel, the following distances apply to the cable plant being deployed and the speed at which the protocol is rated. As demonstrated by the numbers below, if running 62.5-micron fibre in your cable plant, there are some serious considerations to be made when moving into 8Gb/s.

In all 62.5-micron deployments, if you plan to continue moving forward with the FC environment, some strong thoughts need to be placed into cable plant updates of 50-micron fibre. In some cases, however, depending on the distance the fibre flies, 50-micron may not be enough either. This particularly holds true if you are deployed in a structured cable plant with connect boxes and structured tubes of glass.

Multi-mode 62.5 micron

8 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 21m
4 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 50m
2 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 90m
1 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 300m

Multi-mode 50 micron

8 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 150m
4 Gb/sDistance = 2m - 175m
2 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 300m
1 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 500m

Single-Mode 9 micron

8 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 1.4 km
4 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 2 km
2 Gb/s Distance = 2m - 2 km

Most data-center managers or infrastructure people really dislike dealing with the cable-plants inside their facilities, especially if they are asked by the storage team to start ripping out their cabling infrastructure. Their disdain stems from the fact that cable plant costs are extremely expensive, particularly raw cable, installation labor, splicing and test equipment.

However taking no action over time is not an option either as intermittent, uncorrectable symptoms will start to occur if cabling upgrades are not performed and you start to move to 8 Gb/s or beyond.

Examples of problems you might start to experience include things like No-Sync lights, switch ports negotiating at a lower speed, no light transmission at all, etc. Obviously, the time to explore these issues is before you already have deployed new 8 Gb/s switches, HBA's, and storage into your environment.

This problem will continually get worse as plans for the deployment of 16 Gb/s begin in 2011 and scale up to 128 Gb/s in 2020, depending on market demand.

While the FCIA (Fibre Channel Industry Association) says that all FC deployments will be backward compatible for at least two versions, keep in mind that every time a new speed is deployed into the market, new and fresh transceivers need to be added to your switches, storage, and HBA's in order to drive those new speeds (Translation: More Expense).

What's the answer you ask? Not 9-micron fibre - unless there are significant reductions in costs of deploying and maintaining that infrastructure. Especially since most HBA, Storage, and Tape manufacturers don't support a single-mode interface into their devices; the default standard is multi-mode.

The answer I believe is a fundamental shift in the way we look at storage and server interconnects. Here we can take a page out of the book from our Infiniband friends and begin to build storage networks that can not only service I/O but compute as well. I'll get more into why I feel this shift is coming and the direction in may take in my next blog entry.

Editor's Note: This blog entry was originally published on May 30, 2008.

7 Considerations When Choosing a Replication Software Product (Part 2 of 2)

2010-07-27T10:00:00Z

Last week I took a look at the first three factors to consider when choosing a replication software product. This week I wanted to finish my thoughts around that subject and discuss the final four factors that should be part of any evaluation of replication software.

The first three factors as I discussed last week were:

Continuous versus scheduled replication
Efficiency of data transfer
Block versus file

Here are the final four factors that every organization should consider when evaluating any replication software solution:

Replication configuration flexibility. Organizations are getting more dispersed and more complex all of the time. Common topologies that may be supported include 1 to 1, N into 1, and 1 to N replication, each of which has advantages depending on the problem being addressed. Some products support only one-way replication, while others may support bi-directional replication.

Multiple different types of storage and operating systems may need to be supported as well. Array-based replication generally only works between storage arrays from the same vendor, while host, application, and appliance-based replication can generally support heterogeneous storage but may impose operating system or application lock-in. This puts the onus on organizations to find the right product for their environment.

Overhead. Every replication software product is going to consume resources (memory and CPU specifically) as it does the replication. The issue that organizations need to address is where they want to place that load.

While the answer has historically been on the server or storage array since they have often had unused cycles to spare, as organizations increasingly move towards virtualized environments, excess CPU and memory on these systems are harder to come by.

Appliance-based replication can offer some advantages in high growth environments because of its low overhead, scalability, flexibility, and ability to support heterogeneous environments.

Creation of recovery points. Replication and data protection are becoming almost inextricably linked as more organizations want to leverage replication for not just disaster recovery and high availability but their day-to-day data protection needs as well. This may include fast application recoveries or using the replicated data as the source for backups to tape.

However to perform these tasks the replication software has to be application-aware so it can support the application-consistent recovery options necessary to provide the fast, more reliable recovery capabilities as well as the ability to offload backups as desired from productions servers.

Storage consumption. In the same way that all replication software products do not use network bandwidth efficiently, they also do not all use storage space efficiently. This especially comes into play when organizations start to use advanced features available on some replication software products such as continuous data protection.

In these implementations of replication software, all changes are kept for days, weeks or even months depending on the settings. This can consume much more storage capacity than what is in production unless the replication software has some mechanism to efficiently manage the replicated data.

For CDP products in particular, a nice feature to look for that can help reduce storage requirements is a feature called "sparse retention windows" that allow administrators to set policies that establish different levels of data retention granularity as data ages.

Organizations should not view it as a requirement that a single replication software product possess all seven of these attributes in order to consider it appropriate for use in their environment. However, the more of these features and options that the replication software product possesses, the more flexible it will be and the more likely it is that the replication software will meet whatever needs your organization has now or in the future.

Part 1 - 7 Considerations when Choosing a Replication Software Product

Four Guidelines for Tackling 1000% Annual Storage Growth

2010-07-26T10:00:00Z

In the past two months I have probably received more calls from end-users inquiring as to what steps they should take to re-architect their backup infrastructures than I have in the past two years. Yet what I find encouraging is that they are no longer just asking me for point solutions or short term fixes. Rather they are looking for architectures that they can put in place that will solve their immediate pain points while leaving them well-positioned for the future.

This change in emphasis was well articulated in one such call that I received from an IT manager of a West Coast university. A little over a year ago he had implemented a new backup solution with the expectation that it would meet his university's data protection needs for the foreseeable future. But less than a year later he has seen 1000% growth on his production storage and more than 4000% growth in his data protection environment.

But rather than running out to purchase yet another short-term solution, this time he and the entire university are taking a step back and re-evaluating how best to proceed. They recognize that the world of IT is changing (perhaps permanently) and the old ways of doing things (which were new as recently as a decade ago) no longer are the right fit for his environment.

This IT manager then went on to tell me that a major contributor to storage growth in his environment has been the proliferation of the storage of media files (MPEG, JPG, WAV, etc) by the users he supports. More than 50% of the data that he is responsible for managing is in this format as nearly all of his users capture and store this type of data with mobile devices (iPods, iPads, smart phones, netbooks and laptops) that are universally utilized by almost everyone that he supports.

He is also preparing for another new wave of storage demand as the adoption of server virtualization accelerates in his environment. While the university is already using Citrix XenServer for many of its application servers, deploying virtual desktops for all of its students is on the university's radar screen which will result in it needing even more networked storage and an appropriate data protection solution.

So how am I going to recommend the university proceed? Right now it is still too early for me to make any recommendations as we are still in discussions. I am still learning about the university's environment and what it plans to accomplish while the university is tapping me as to what new technologies are available and how these new technologies create new possibilities that it had not previously considered.

But as we talk, it is curious how our early discussions are reminiscent of the strategy that Symantec's Information Management Group (IMG) announced this past spring at Symantec Vision. In a nutshell, Symantec is giving its customers four guidelines for managing storage growth: (1) Protect completely; (2) Deduplicate everywhere; (3) Delete confidently; and, (4) Discover efficiently; and then aligning its solutions to deliver on them.

These principles will certainly come into play as I continue talking with this university as to how it should best proceed. Consider:

The university wants to protect all of its data regardless if it is a table in a database, a video on a file server, a snapshot of a virtual server image or an object in an archive. However delivering complete data protection means different things in these different contexts. Protecting and recovering a production database may call for the deployment of continuous data protection technology in order provide the granularity of protection and the recovery time that the database needs. Conversely, daily snapshots of virtual server images may be the most appropriate and cost-effective way to protect and recovery these images.

Deduplication will certainly have a role in this environment but it must be implemented with great care. Deduplicating production file stores may actually be a mistake in this environment because it is storing so many media files. However deduplicating these files when they are backed up certainly makes sense or, possibly even better yet, first archiving these files and then deduplicating them in the archive may be the right approach.

Deleting data is possibly another objective that this university may want to accomplish. Odds are that the university does not need to keep all of its backups forever, especially if they happen to be keeping full weekly backups for a year or longer. Just modifying this practice to only keeping these backups for 30 days can reduce their backup data stores and even their legal liabilities substantially.

But before it can delete one byte of data, it has to understand and document what types of files its students and faculties have stored and what current or potential value that they may represent to the university. For instance, it may seem logical to want to delete an entire student's directory of movies. However, suppose those movies are part of a documentary he is working on as part of a research project. Then deleting them without knowing what short or long term purpose they serve is less than a good idea.

Alternatively, if they cannot definitely decide if the data can be deleted, they may want to archive it using a solution like Symantec's Enterprise Vault. This may include data from file servers, faculty and staff email or employee and student records

The university will have a hard time effectively executing on any of these objectives until it knows exactly what data it has and the perceived value (or risk) that keeping the data presents to the university. This means it has to be smart about the information in its possession so it will ideally need to distinguish between what data is needed for recovery and which it merely needs to retain.

To accomplish this, the university should have a mechanism that can discover and document the data that it is managing so it can plan for future growth as well as make decisions as to what data to keep and what data to delete. This should also enable to know which other storage technologies to deploy (such as deduplication) so it can become more efficient in its storage management, reduce its storage consumption and save real dollars.

The struggles that this university is having with its data and storage growth are likely symptomatic of what many other organizations are starting to see or are already experiencing. Perhaps what is most telling is that many of the old standards for measuring data and storage growth as well as approaches for managing data and storage have to minimally be modified or possibly even thrown out because today's world is so much more dynamic than environments of the past.

A turnkey solution that I could present to this university that would solve all of its problems would certainly be ideal but is probably not realistic. A more practical approach is to follow the four guidelines outlined above. As I see it, the only way for the university to ensure that it has the right combination of products for all of the different challenges it faces is to take a multi-faceted approach and then to use a combination of solutions from a provider such as Symantec to meet them.

The Dominoes are Being Set up to Fall in Favor of One Enterprise Storage Cloud Provider

2010-07-23T10:00:00Z

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates it is no longer a question of "If" enterprises will adopt cloud storage infrastructure but a matter of "When". However pinpointing exactly when enterprise organizations will begin their broad adoption of public storage clouds is still difficult to ascertain.

It is not that enterprise organizations are unwilling to spend money on public cloud storage services or lack the budget to do so - they do. Analyst firm Gartner, Inc., forecasts that enterprise expenditures on cloud services will grow exponentially over the next four years reaching $148 billion by 2014.

Rather it appears the reason that enterprise organizations are putting off their adoption of public storage clouds is because they lack confidence that storage cloud providers can deliver them in the manner in which they need.

For example, one would expect that health care providers (hospitals, physicians, etc.) would be some of the first to jump on board the public storage cloud bandwagon. The existing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) coupled with the new provisions in the recently signed Affordable Healthcare Act are bound to create rapidly growing data stores of Electronic Medical Records (EMR).

Add to that the increased use of higher resolution digital medical images by physicians and it would seem all of the pieces are in place to make health care a prime candidate to take advantage of the cost and efficiency benefits that public storage clouds can provide.

Yet at the recent Mass High Tech Emerging Technology Forum held in Boston, MA, attendees like Robert Buchanan, the CIO of Anna Jacques Hospital in Newburyport, MA, expressed apprehension about storing his hospital's data in public storage clouds. He says, "It will take time for people to feel comfortable with having their personal data out there."

This lack of comfort explains why, according to another analyst survey released in February 2010, only 3% of health care providers are using public storage clouds in any form and only another 5% were adopting it in 2010. Perhaps even more disconcerting, fully 43% of health care institutions have no interest in public storage clouds and the 43% that did express interest had no formal plans for adoption.

While it is difficult to pick out an exact reason as to why enterprise organizations are so reluctant to trust their data with public storage cloud, much of their apprehension may be rooted in the types of customers that current cloud storage providers are set up to service.

Current public storage cloud architectures have been designed and constructed to solve a very narrow set of problems that are reflective of the kinds of issues that consumers and small businesses have. It is for this reason that these providers primarily offer archiving, backup and file sharing services.

In this respect, public storage cloud offerings from the likes of Box.net, FilesAnywhere, Flickr, GigaSize.com, Mozy, and Photobucket have been a boon to end-users, professionals working from home and small businesses. These individuals and businesses now have access to services that they could never build for themselves or otherwise afford.

But these public storage cloud services to which these users subscribe are designed for use by the masses. As a result, their users are given few if any options to reconfigure these public storage clouds to meet their specific requirements for availability, data protection or performance. So while this approach may be acceptable to this class of users, it is largely unacceptable to enterprise organizations which probably explains their low rate of adoption of cloud storage solutions.

Stories about outages and suspension of public storage cloud services only exacerbate the concerns that enterprise organizations have about storing their data with public storage cloud providers. Outages at major public storage cloud providers such as Amazon in 2008, Google in 2009 and EMC Atmos Online in 2010 stretch their confidence that providers can support them.

Then terminating public storage cloud services such as what EMC recently did with its Atmos Online only harden their resolve to proceed cautiously so as not to lose their organization's data in the cloud.

Storage clouds are the future of storage and I am convinced that over the course of the next decade every enterprise organization will adopt storage clouds to one degree or another. But because of these current issues with public storage clouds, it is not surprising that enterprise organizations are gingerly moving forward with cloud storage if they are adopting it at all.

What is worth monitoring is what will be the event that triggers a change in this status quo. Enterprise organizations closely watch what their counterparts at other organizations are doing and right now when they look at what they are doing in regards to cloud storage, they typically find their counterparts looking right back at them.

But should one storage vendor get some deployments in place and then obtain those critical referrals from customers who are viewed as the industry leaders, watch out. A rapid swing towards a specific cloud storage provider could happen in much the same way that a swing towards a specific server virtualization provider (VMware) occurred.

Should this occur, do not be surprised to see cloud storage adoption among enterprises quickly gain momentum and the dominoes begin to fall heavily in favor of that one cloud storage provider that gets those customer references.

Identifying the Right SSD Architecture to Fit Its Emerging Use Case as a New Tier of Memory

2010-07-20T10:00:00Z

Over the last twelve months a trend towards implementing flash drives as a new tier of memory has emerged. Driven by the lower cost of flash when compared to RAM plus the growing realization that not all of an application's data requires the performance boost that flash provides, more organizations are looking to deploy flash as a new tier of memory. But as more solid state drive (SSD) manufacturers try to fit their SSDs into this new SSD use case, the trick for users is to figure out which product architecture is the best fit.

The impetus behind adopting flash as a new memory tier is being driven by four main factors:

DRAM costs about 9X more than flash
SSDs cost roughly 10x more than HDDs
Only 5 - 20% of application data is sufficiently active to benefit from flash's performance
Deploying a mix of DRAM, SSD and SATA HDDs can be more economical and perform better than a mix of DRAM with FC and SATA HDDs

It is for these reasons that implementing SSDs as a new tier of memory is resonating with users for business and technical reasons. However what is not so obvious is which SSD architecture is the right choice for use as a memory tier since all SSDs are not architected in the same way.

SSD architectures can be broadly classified in two ways:

Storage controller approach
Memory controller approach

The storage controller approach implements SSDs so they look and function like HDDs. While I have previously illustrated some of the risks associated with implementing flash in this way, the two main problems that result are added costs in the construction of the SSD and new risks resulting from the soft errors that can occur within the SSD.

The extra costs result from manufacturers embedding processors, DRAM and firmware into the SSD. These are needed to make flash look like an HDD to an operating system.

Adding these extra components also introduces the possibility that soft errors can occur since many SSD products lack sufficient intelligence to detect soft errors should they occur and then correct them if they do. What few SSDs do possess this level of sophistication to detect and correct these soft errors carry a much higher price tag.

In addition, two other concerns emerge when using SSDs that are based upon the storage controller technique in this context of a new memory tier.

They are significantly slower than native flash. SSDs that are implemented using the storage controller architecture require that data traverse its internal controllers. This can force the data to take as many as nine (9) additional hops before it gets to its final destination. Data translations also have to occur between each layer as it moves from ATA or SCSI protocols to flash and back again.

Users must make an unpleasant RAID configuration decision. Users must account for the possibility that an SSD may fail so they have to select an appropriate RAID configuration to protect the data on that SSD. In the case of SSD, no RAID option is particularly attractive. Any RAID implementation will require the purchase of more SSDs and each RAID configurations comes with trade-offs. RAID 0 sacrifices reliability and redundancy; RAID 1 sacrifices capacity; and, RAID 5 introduces an additional performance hit.

Introducing SSDs that use a storage controller as a memory tier is feasible but using them in this manner is akin to trying to put a square peg in a round hole. It is for this reason that SSDs with a memory controller architecture are much more well suited for this emerging use case as a memory tier.

SSD products such as the Fusion-io ioDrive that use a memory controller take steps to minimize concerns around the upfront costs of SSDs and the soft errors that can result from their implementation.

But what makes an SSD solution that uses a memory controller architecture appealing for use as a new tier of memory is that it takes three (3) steps to lower costs, increase performance and decrease risk.

First, Fusion-io eliminates the need to manage an SSD like an HDD. Flash is not longer put into a box and configured to look like an HDD to the operating system. Instead Fusion-io collapses flash onto a PCI-Express card that is inserted directly into a PCI slot on the server backplane.

Second, Fusion-io removes the need to configure SSDs in a RAID configuration by creating a flash array that has redundancy. In this configuration, it has multiple redundant flash chips that can dynamically replace any flash chip that becomes defective without requiring a user to replace the PCI-Express card.

Third, it performs address translations the same way that virtual memory address translations are performed which is probably its most important characteristic. This technique removes the need for the numerous embedded address translations that SSDs that use a storage controller design require while expediting processing since only one translation needs to occur.

These steps contribute to making SSDs that use a memory controller architecture particularly well suited to act as this new memory tier because they do more than just act like virtual memory. They actually behave as if they are virtual memory since there is no intermediary bus or hierarchy of controllers that the data first has to traverse. Using this technique data can flow directly onto a Fusion-io ioDrive since it is specifically architected to act like DRAM and communicate in flash, the same language that DRAM uses.

Leveraging virtual memory to complement DRAM has long been a technique used to accelerate application performance. But this new option to introduce SSDs that communicate in the same language as DRAM has a dramatic and positive impact on how applications perform while forcing organizations to rethink how they will architect their storage infrastructures going forward.

To successfully execute on this vision and implement SSDs as a new memory tier dictates that organizations chose the right SSD architecture if they hope to optimize SSDs deployed in this manner. To do so, they must select SSDs that are architected to function as memory controllers, not storage controllers. It is for these reasons that organizations that want to leverage SSD as a new memory tier should look to the Fusion-io ioDrive as it is exactly these types of problems that it was architected and designed to solve.