Managing the information that drives the enterprise
Vol 10 No 10 December 2011
MOBILE BACKUP THERErsquoS AN APP FOR THAT bull TAPE LIBRARIES RATED
STORAGE
ALSO INSIDEldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories
Occupy Storage
Replicate and recover
How much does your storage really cost
Fibre Channel still tops networking list
Hot Technologies for 2012
We list six hot storage techs that are hereand ready to transform your data center
FROM OUR SPONSORS
enterprise
FROM OUR SPONSORS
4 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGEinside | december 2011
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound6 EDITORIAL Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage
business be killing off some of the most useful storage technologies around by RICH CASTAGNA
Occupy Storage9 STORAGE REVOLUTION Data storage technologies keep getting better
but it looks like storage vendors are just up to their old tricks againby JON TOIGO
Hot storage technologies for 201213 These six data storage technologies are ready for prime time and
can help you transform your data center by ANDREW BURTON RICH
CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII
ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
Mobile backup Therersquos an app for that30 Users may be carrying a significant amount of their companyrsquos
intellectual property on their smartphones tablets and other ultra-portable devicesmdashand that data needs to be protected by PHIL GOODWIN
Quality Awards Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field40 After finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveys
Quantumrsquos tape libraries romped through both the enterprise and midrange categories in our sixth service and reliability survey by RICH CASTAGNA
Replication technology for day-to-day recovery54 HOT SPOTS Itrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication
technology is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operationsby LAUREN WHITEHOUSE
Determining the real cost of storage58 READWRITE Vendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO but figuring out
what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process by JEFF BOLES
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking62 SNAPSHOT In our latest Snapshot survey a majority of respondents use
networked storage But the number of companies already using 10 GbpsEthernet and 8 Gbps Fibre Channel may be surprising by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors64 Useful links from our sponsors
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i
Storage May 2010Copyright 2011 TechTarget No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writingfrom the publisher For permissions or reprint information please contact Mike Kelly VP and Group Publisher (mkellytechtargetcom)
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
6
rsquoVE GONE OFF about this ldquobig datardquo thing on more than one occasion abouthow itrsquos mostly marketing hype that vendors hope to turn into sales Butthe whole deal is starting to give me the creeps and itrsquos not just becausethe phrase ldquobig datardquo is being burned into our collective cerebrum withastonishing efficiency
Irsquom still struggling with the idea that therersquos a solution appropriate for pro-cessing big files like high-def digital movies and lots of small files like tweetsGiven the number of vendors already piled onto the big data bandwagon itseems like there are dozens of these so-called solutions floating around So I have trouble getting over that big data hump because any term that refersto completely opposite things simultaneously is questionable in my book
Irsquom not just on a semantical jag here The big data specter goes deeperthan that If you can look past its dual personality a pretty clever play forcorporate egos is at work here ldquoOf course our data is big we wouldnrsquot wantit if it werenrsquotrdquo Itrsquos an emotional ploy that feeds into the kind of self-impor-tance that says everything we dosaycreate is important and should bekeptminedanalyzed Big is beautiful and our data is bigger than yours
Here comes the conspiracy theory part Why is it that so many companiestoday are awash in big data (if they really are) Sure there are a lot moreways of creating stuff than before and everybody seems to be walkingaround with a data-creating machine in each pocket but all of a sudden we have to figure out what to do with the stuff Not too long ago a fewstartups appeared with productsmdashrudimentary maybe but real productsmdashthat could help us pore through all the stuff we stored to determine whatrsquosworth keeping and what needs to be deep-sixed Those data classificationproducts had a lot of promise they came from companies such as AbrevityArkivio FileTek StoredIQ and Kazeon and it looked like they would be thecornerstones of storage management operations from tiering to archiving
editorial | rich castagna
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound
Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage biz be killing off some of the most
useful storage technologies around
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
FROM OUR SPONSORS
enterprise
FROM OUR SPONSORS
4 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGEinside | december 2011
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound6 EDITORIAL Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage
business be killing off some of the most useful storage technologies around by RICH CASTAGNA
Occupy Storage9 STORAGE REVOLUTION Data storage technologies keep getting better
but it looks like storage vendors are just up to their old tricks againby JON TOIGO
Hot storage technologies for 201213 These six data storage technologies are ready for prime time and
can help you transform your data center by ANDREW BURTON RICH
CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII
ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
Mobile backup Therersquos an app for that30 Users may be carrying a significant amount of their companyrsquos
intellectual property on their smartphones tablets and other ultra-portable devicesmdashand that data needs to be protected by PHIL GOODWIN
Quality Awards Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field40 After finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveys
Quantumrsquos tape libraries romped through both the enterprise and midrange categories in our sixth service and reliability survey by RICH CASTAGNA
Replication technology for day-to-day recovery54 HOT SPOTS Itrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication
technology is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operationsby LAUREN WHITEHOUSE
Determining the real cost of storage58 READWRITE Vendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO but figuring out
what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process by JEFF BOLES
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking62 SNAPSHOT In our latest Snapshot survey a majority of respondents use
networked storage But the number of companies already using 10 GbpsEthernet and 8 Gbps Fibre Channel may be surprising by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors64 Useful links from our sponsors
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soLveD
copy2011 CDW LLC CDWreg CDWbullGreg and PeOPLe WHO Get Ittrade are trademarks of CDW LLC
i
Storage May 2010Copyright 2011 TechTarget No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writingfrom the publisher For permissions or reprint information please contact Mike Kelly VP and Group Publisher (mkellytechtargetcom)
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
6
rsquoVE GONE OFF about this ldquobig datardquo thing on more than one occasion abouthow itrsquos mostly marketing hype that vendors hope to turn into sales Butthe whole deal is starting to give me the creeps and itrsquos not just becausethe phrase ldquobig datardquo is being burned into our collective cerebrum withastonishing efficiency
Irsquom still struggling with the idea that therersquos a solution appropriate for pro-cessing big files like high-def digital movies and lots of small files like tweetsGiven the number of vendors already piled onto the big data bandwagon itseems like there are dozens of these so-called solutions floating around So I have trouble getting over that big data hump because any term that refersto completely opposite things simultaneously is questionable in my book
Irsquom not just on a semantical jag here The big data specter goes deeperthan that If you can look past its dual personality a pretty clever play forcorporate egos is at work here ldquoOf course our data is big we wouldnrsquot wantit if it werenrsquotrdquo Itrsquos an emotional ploy that feeds into the kind of self-impor-tance that says everything we dosaycreate is important and should bekeptminedanalyzed Big is beautiful and our data is bigger than yours
Here comes the conspiracy theory part Why is it that so many companiestoday are awash in big data (if they really are) Sure there are a lot moreways of creating stuff than before and everybody seems to be walkingaround with a data-creating machine in each pocket but all of a sudden we have to figure out what to do with the stuff Not too long ago a fewstartups appeared with productsmdashrudimentary maybe but real productsmdashthat could help us pore through all the stuff we stored to determine whatrsquosworth keeping and what needs to be deep-sixed Those data classificationproducts had a lot of promise they came from companies such as AbrevityArkivio FileTek StoredIQ and Kazeon and it looked like they would be thecornerstones of storage management operations from tiering to archiving
editorial | rich castagna
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound
Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage biz be killing off some of the most
useful storage technologies around
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
FROM OUR SPONSORS
4 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGEinside | december 2011
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound6 EDITORIAL Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage
business be killing off some of the most useful storage technologies around by RICH CASTAGNA
Occupy Storage9 STORAGE REVOLUTION Data storage technologies keep getting better
but it looks like storage vendors are just up to their old tricks againby JON TOIGO
Hot storage technologies for 201213 These six data storage technologies are ready for prime time and
can help you transform your data center by ANDREW BURTON RICH
CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII
ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
Mobile backup Therersquos an app for that30 Users may be carrying a significant amount of their companyrsquos
intellectual property on their smartphones tablets and other ultra-portable devicesmdashand that data needs to be protected by PHIL GOODWIN
Quality Awards Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field40 After finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveys
Quantumrsquos tape libraries romped through both the enterprise and midrange categories in our sixth service and reliability survey by RICH CASTAGNA
Replication technology for day-to-day recovery54 HOT SPOTS Itrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication
technology is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operationsby LAUREN WHITEHOUSE
Determining the real cost of storage58 READWRITE Vendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO but figuring out
what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process by JEFF BOLES
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking62 SNAPSHOT In our latest Snapshot survey a majority of respondents use
networked storage But the number of companies already using 10 GbpsEthernet and 8 Gbps Fibre Channel may be surprising by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors64 Useful links from our sponsors
server rooms that require GPs NaviGatioN
We get that virtualization can drive a better ROI Highly certified by Microsoft VMware HP and others we can evaluate design and implement the right solution for youWersquoll get you out of this mess at CDWcomvirtualization
soLveD
copy2011 CDW LLC CDWreg CDWbullGreg and PeOPLe WHO Get Ittrade are trademarks of CDW LLC
i
Storage May 2010Copyright 2011 TechTarget No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writingfrom the publisher For permissions or reprint information please contact Mike Kelly VP and Group Publisher (mkellytechtargetcom)
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
6
rsquoVE GONE OFF about this ldquobig datardquo thing on more than one occasion abouthow itrsquos mostly marketing hype that vendors hope to turn into sales Butthe whole deal is starting to give me the creeps and itrsquos not just becausethe phrase ldquobig datardquo is being burned into our collective cerebrum withastonishing efficiency
Irsquom still struggling with the idea that therersquos a solution appropriate for pro-cessing big files like high-def digital movies and lots of small files like tweetsGiven the number of vendors already piled onto the big data bandwagon itseems like there are dozens of these so-called solutions floating around So I have trouble getting over that big data hump because any term that refersto completely opposite things simultaneously is questionable in my book
Irsquom not just on a semantical jag here The big data specter goes deeperthan that If you can look past its dual personality a pretty clever play forcorporate egos is at work here ldquoOf course our data is big we wouldnrsquot wantit if it werenrsquotrdquo Itrsquos an emotional ploy that feeds into the kind of self-impor-tance that says everything we dosaycreate is important and should bekeptminedanalyzed Big is beautiful and our data is bigger than yours
Here comes the conspiracy theory part Why is it that so many companiestoday are awash in big data (if they really are) Sure there are a lot moreways of creating stuff than before and everybody seems to be walkingaround with a data-creating machine in each pocket but all of a sudden we have to figure out what to do with the stuff Not too long ago a fewstartups appeared with productsmdashrudimentary maybe but real productsmdashthat could help us pore through all the stuff we stored to determine whatrsquosworth keeping and what needs to be deep-sixed Those data classificationproducts had a lot of promise they came from companies such as AbrevityArkivio FileTek StoredIQ and Kazeon and it looked like they would be thecornerstones of storage management operations from tiering to archiving
editorial | rich castagna
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound
Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage biz be killing off some of the most
useful storage technologies around
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
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See ad page 53
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
4 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGEinside | december 2011
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound6 EDITORIAL Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage
business be killing off some of the most useful storage technologies around by RICH CASTAGNA
Occupy Storage9 STORAGE REVOLUTION Data storage technologies keep getting better
but it looks like storage vendors are just up to their old tricks againby JON TOIGO
Hot storage technologies for 201213 These six data storage technologies are ready for prime time and
can help you transform your data center by ANDREW BURTON RICH
CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII
ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
Mobile backup Therersquos an app for that30 Users may be carrying a significant amount of their companyrsquos
intellectual property on their smartphones tablets and other ultra-portable devicesmdashand that data needs to be protected by PHIL GOODWIN
Quality Awards Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field40 After finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveys
Quantumrsquos tape libraries romped through both the enterprise and midrange categories in our sixth service and reliability survey by RICH CASTAGNA
Replication technology for day-to-day recovery54 HOT SPOTS Itrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication
technology is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operationsby LAUREN WHITEHOUSE
Determining the real cost of storage58 READWRITE Vendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO but figuring out
what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process by JEFF BOLES
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking62 SNAPSHOT In our latest Snapshot survey a majority of respondents use
networked storage But the number of companies already using 10 GbpsEthernet and 8 Gbps Fibre Channel may be surprising by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors64 Useful links from our sponsors
server rooms that require GPs NaviGatioN
We get that virtualization can drive a better ROI Highly certified by Microsoft VMware HP and others we can evaluate design and implement the right solution for youWersquoll get you out of this mess at CDWcomvirtualization
soLveD
copy2011 CDW LLC CDWreg CDWbullGreg and PeOPLe WHO Get Ittrade are trademarks of CDW LLC
i
Storage May 2010Copyright 2011 TechTarget No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writingfrom the publisher For permissions or reprint information please contact Mike Kelly VP and Group Publisher (mkellytechtargetcom)
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
6
rsquoVE GONE OFF about this ldquobig datardquo thing on more than one occasion abouthow itrsquos mostly marketing hype that vendors hope to turn into sales Butthe whole deal is starting to give me the creeps and itrsquos not just becausethe phrase ldquobig datardquo is being burned into our collective cerebrum withastonishing efficiency
Irsquom still struggling with the idea that therersquos a solution appropriate for pro-cessing big files like high-def digital movies and lots of small files like tweetsGiven the number of vendors already piled onto the big data bandwagon itseems like there are dozens of these so-called solutions floating around So I have trouble getting over that big data hump because any term that refersto completely opposite things simultaneously is questionable in my book
Irsquom not just on a semantical jag here The big data specter goes deeperthan that If you can look past its dual personality a pretty clever play forcorporate egos is at work here ldquoOf course our data is big we wouldnrsquot wantit if it werenrsquotrdquo Itrsquos an emotional ploy that feeds into the kind of self-impor-tance that says everything we dosaycreate is important and should bekeptminedanalyzed Big is beautiful and our data is bigger than yours
Here comes the conspiracy theory part Why is it that so many companiestoday are awash in big data (if they really are) Sure there are a lot moreways of creating stuff than before and everybody seems to be walkingaround with a data-creating machine in each pocket but all of a sudden we have to figure out what to do with the stuff Not too long ago a fewstartups appeared with productsmdashrudimentary maybe but real productsmdashthat could help us pore through all the stuff we stored to determine whatrsquosworth keeping and what needs to be deep-sixed Those data classificationproducts had a lot of promise they came from companies such as AbrevityArkivio FileTek StoredIQ and Kazeon and it looked like they would be thecornerstones of storage management operations from tiering to archiving
editorial | rich castagna
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound
Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage biz be killing off some of the most
useful storage technologies around
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
server rooms that require GPs NaviGatioN
We get that virtualization can drive a better ROI Highly certified by Microsoft VMware HP and others we can evaluate design and implement the right solution for youWersquoll get you out of this mess at CDWcomvirtualization
soLveD
copy2011 CDW LLC CDWreg CDWbullGreg and PeOPLe WHO Get Ittrade are trademarks of CDW LLC
i
Storage May 2010Copyright 2011 TechTarget No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writingfrom the publisher For permissions or reprint information please contact Mike Kelly VP and Group Publisher (mkellytechtargetcom)
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
6
rsquoVE GONE OFF about this ldquobig datardquo thing on more than one occasion abouthow itrsquos mostly marketing hype that vendors hope to turn into sales Butthe whole deal is starting to give me the creeps and itrsquos not just becausethe phrase ldquobig datardquo is being burned into our collective cerebrum withastonishing efficiency
Irsquom still struggling with the idea that therersquos a solution appropriate for pro-cessing big files like high-def digital movies and lots of small files like tweetsGiven the number of vendors already piled onto the big data bandwagon itseems like there are dozens of these so-called solutions floating around So I have trouble getting over that big data hump because any term that refersto completely opposite things simultaneously is questionable in my book
Irsquom not just on a semantical jag here The big data specter goes deeperthan that If you can look past its dual personality a pretty clever play forcorporate egos is at work here ldquoOf course our data is big we wouldnrsquot wantit if it werenrsquotrdquo Itrsquos an emotional ploy that feeds into the kind of self-impor-tance that says everything we dosaycreate is important and should bekeptminedanalyzed Big is beautiful and our data is bigger than yours
Here comes the conspiracy theory part Why is it that so many companiestoday are awash in big data (if they really are) Sure there are a lot moreways of creating stuff than before and everybody seems to be walkingaround with a data-creating machine in each pocket but all of a sudden we have to figure out what to do with the stuff Not too long ago a fewstartups appeared with productsmdashrudimentary maybe but real productsmdashthat could help us pore through all the stuff we stored to determine whatrsquosworth keeping and what needs to be deep-sixed Those data classificationproducts had a lot of promise they came from companies such as AbrevityArkivio FileTek StoredIQ and Kazeon and it looked like they would be thecornerstones of storage management operations from tiering to archiving
editorial | rich castagna
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound
Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage biz be killing off some of the most
useful storage technologies around
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
i
Storage May 2010Copyright 2011 TechTarget No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writingfrom the publisher For permissions or reprint information please contact Mike Kelly VP and Group Publisher (mkellytechtargetcom)
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
6
rsquoVE GONE OFF about this ldquobig datardquo thing on more than one occasion abouthow itrsquos mostly marketing hype that vendors hope to turn into sales Butthe whole deal is starting to give me the creeps and itrsquos not just becausethe phrase ldquobig datardquo is being burned into our collective cerebrum withastonishing efficiency
Irsquom still struggling with the idea that therersquos a solution appropriate for pro-cessing big files like high-def digital movies and lots of small files like tweetsGiven the number of vendors already piled onto the big data bandwagon itseems like there are dozens of these so-called solutions floating around So I have trouble getting over that big data hump because any term that refersto completely opposite things simultaneously is questionable in my book
Irsquom not just on a semantical jag here The big data specter goes deeperthan that If you can look past its dual personality a pretty clever play forcorporate egos is at work here ldquoOf course our data is big we wouldnrsquot wantit if it werenrsquotrdquo Itrsquos an emotional ploy that feeds into the kind of self-impor-tance that says everything we dosaycreate is important and should bekeptminedanalyzed Big is beautiful and our data is bigger than yours
Here comes the conspiracy theory part Why is it that so many companiestoday are awash in big data (if they really are) Sure there are a lot moreways of creating stuff than before and everybody seems to be walkingaround with a data-creating machine in each pocket but all of a sudden we have to figure out what to do with the stuff Not too long ago a fewstartups appeared with productsmdashrudimentary maybe but real productsmdashthat could help us pore through all the stuff we stored to determine whatrsquosworth keeping and what needs to be deep-sixed Those data classificationproducts had a lot of promise they came from companies such as AbrevityArkivio FileTek StoredIQ and Kazeon and it looked like they would be thecornerstones of storage management operations from tiering to archiving
editorial | rich castagna
ldquoBig datardquo conspiracy theories abound
Could the latest and greatest buzzword in the storage biz be killing off some of the most
useful storage technologies around
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
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bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
7 STORAGE December 2011
The premise was simple You have to know what yoursquove got before you de-cide what you need to do with it
Maybe itrsquos too simple If users get a better grip on what theyrsquore storing andwhat they shouldnrsquot be storing they mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage So itwasnrsquot a big surprise that most of those classification vendors disappearedsome simply into the ether and others into the portfolios of (guess who)storage vendors where for the most part theyrsquove just withered away
Apparently knowing what tokeep and what to chuck is a littlethreatening if your company sellsthe storage to stash all that stuffon With those pesky data classifi-cation apps out of the way userscould get back to doing what theyalways do amassing untold heapsof data and buying more disk tostore it
So now you have big data and itrsquos a big problem and vendors are all toohappy to help They have big data storage systems and can supply state-of-the-art big data processing tools so that firms like yours can crunch throughthe piles of data yoursquove been encouraged to keep And as you plow throughthe knee-high drifts of data yoursquoll probably determine your employeesspend too much time tweeting updating their Facebook pages and usingthe SAN to save photos of their kids And yoursquore left to wonder why yoursquorekeeping it all
But data classification isnrsquot the only technology casualty of the bigdata juggernaut A couple of years ago there was buzz around the arrivalof a few products that promised to cut our primary data storage down tosize using deduplication and compression But the two leading startupswere scooped up by megavendors and now primary dedupe and compres-sion sit like a couple of old boxcars on an abandoned railroad siding
And while yoursquore still reeling from the big data drubbing yoursquore gettingfrom vendors watch out for the cloud haymaker theyrsquore about to land Because cloud storage is perfect for big data right And buzzwords tendto get lonely if theyrsquore left on their own 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the January 2012 issue
If users get a bettergrip on what theyrsquorestoring and what theyshouldnrsquot be storingthey mightmdashgaspmdashbuy less storage
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
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editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
9 STORAGE December 2011
iT SEEMS SOMEHOW STRANGE to be publishing my inaugural column in Storagemagazinersquos last issue of 2011 So much ink has already seen paper (or pixelshave been seen on screens) over the last 11 months articles and columnsexpressing findings theories and opinions about the value and benefits ofor limitations and challenges posed by contemporary data storage productsand the way we use them today The situation sets the bar pretty high foranother voice entering the fray to contribute something that will add realvalue to the discussion already in progress
Equally disconcerting is the factthat Irsquom writing this column in ahotel room in Newton Mass notfar from the Hopkinton home ofthe storage hardware marketshare leader EMC Anyone familiarwith my work knows my viewswhich tend to be quite critical of both EMCrsquos products and theirmarketing and sales techniques These views largely pre-date the burgeoningldquogilded agerdquo of storage in which a handful of behemoth vendors havegobbled up most of the smaller fry reducing the options available to consumers for solving storage challenges in the process Irsquove had otheraxes to grind with Hopkinton over my 30-year-plus career in IT and havebeen open and vociferous in expressing my views Frankly I was surprisedand intrigued to be offered a column in this magazine under the circum-stances since the advertising revenue that keeps the publication afloatcomes from precisely those vendors with whose products I so frequentlyfind fault
All of the above notwithstanding I thank you readers for indulging mewith some of your time and I promise to try not to waste any of it I under-stand the challenges that most of you are facing Yoursquore shouldering thework of what used to be many tasked with delivering ever higher service
storage revolutIOn | jon toigo
Occupy StorageData storage technologies keep getting better but storage vendors may just be up to their old tricks
I thank you readersfor indulging me withsome of your time andI promise to try not towaste any of it
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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Scan the QR code with your smart phone to see how Fluid Data gives PING the freedom to innovate and grow as a business or visit wwwcompellentcomPINGDrivesInnovation
PING drives innovation with Fluid Datatrade storage
Eric Hart NetworkInfrastructure Manager PING
3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
levels to your businesses with ever shrinking budgets and at the sametime endeavoring to wrangle a bunch of disparate storage technologiesinto some sort of coherent and manageable resource
I read recently that more than a trillion transactions traverse the wirescables and wireless spectrum of a medium-sized business data centerevery day Those are a trillion miraclesmdashphotons electrons and radio wavesthat successfully complete roundtrips across the most hostile environ-ments imaginable carrying requestsfor data and returning responses tousers and applicationsmdashand you arethe miracle workers who make themhappen
Of course therersquos no recognitionof this and no time to rest on onersquoslaurels even if you were recognizedTruth be told life is hard in storageland and itrsquos about to get a lot harder
With the advent of the new gildedage wersquore seeing vendors return toold tricks like isolating value-addfunctionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in con-sumers and lock out competitors In general this design approach haslimited merit because it inhibits cross-platform manageability increasesdata routing complexity drives up the cost of commodity array compo-nents adds what are usually obscene software licensing costs to the kitand introduces greater risk of failure into the data center environmentEmbedded value-add software vendor engineers have told me is usuallypoorly validated because the interoperability test matrix is simply toocomplex and time consuming to undertake and complete Thus it shouldcome as little surprise that the 3000 companies polled by CA Technologiesearlier this year reported they had accrued more than 127 million hours ofdowntime last year partly due to storage-related outages (The AvoidableCost of Downtime May 2011 CA Technologies)
And in this gilded age it goes without saying that a proper behemothstorage vendor must also offer a ldquocloud architecturerdquo Using proprietaryhardwaresoftware stacks each one is seeking to advance its own main-frame ldquomini-merdquo that combines a server hypervisor with a set of network
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
10 STORAGE December 2011
With the advent ofthe new gilded agewersquore seeing vendorsreturn to old trickslike isolating value-add functionality on array controllerswhere it can be used to lock in consumers and lock out competitors
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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PING drives innovation with Fluid Datatrade storage
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
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Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
protocols supported only by the vendorrsquos own switches and its ldquosignaturerdquovalue-add storage gear to deliver the ultimate ldquoone-stop-shoprdquo They haveenlisted analysts to preach the gospel of ldquosingle sourcerdquo again One For-rester analyst recently wrote that buying all technology from one vendoris ldquothe only real wayrdquo to drive cost out of storage That couldnrsquot be furtherfrom the truth but itrsquos the mantra vendors are humming into the receptiveears of non-technical decision-makers in the front office of every firm I visit today Many pine for the orderliness of the IBM mainframe data centerof the 1970s while forgetting how the loss of leverage over a vendor trans-lated to extraordinary capital costs in hardware and software and delaysin obtaining needed fixes and changes to products Wersquove forgotten thelessons of the past and are poised to repeat them
Or maybe not I intend to occupy this corner of Storage the magazinefor the foreseeable future and I invite everyone whorsquos interested to bringa tent sleeping bag and their favorite storage issues so we can start anentirely new discussion one about fixing the broken storage model beforeit fixes us This gilded age promises to benefit the 1 of companies thatstill have deep pockets and unlimited budgets for buying storage The other99 need to start exploring viable alternatives 2
Jon William Toigo is a 30-year IT veteran He is CEO and managing principal of Toigo Partners International and chairman of the Data Management Institute
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
11 STORAGE December 2011
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Year after year some companies stick with legacy data protection software not designed to handle todayrsquos IT realities The result Business at risk frustrated users out-of-control costs and compromised business agility In a word insanity
With its revolutionary single-platform architecture Simpana software enables you to solve these problems right now and far into the future It will lower operational labor and infrastructure costs streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud
computing and smooth adaptation to challenges like data center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements
The result Up to 50 reduction in storage-related costs and a far simpler saner way to manage access and recover business information In a word oneness
To learn how you can do far more with less and add real value to your end users and your business with Simpana software visit AchieveOnenesscom or call 888-311-0365
Switch to single-platform Simpanareg software for truly modern data and information management
copy1999-2011 CommVault Systems Inc All rights reserved CommVault the ldquoCVrdquo logo Solving Forward Simpana and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems Inc All specifications are subject to change without notice
Backup amp Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
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NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
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See ad page 23
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bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
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bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
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See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
wThe ldquoBig Datardquo
conspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
13 STORAGE December 2011
HAT MAKES A storage technology ldquohotrdquo In our book anything new that makesstoring your companyrsquos data a faster better or more efficient process isworthy of the ldquohotrdquo label But it must also represent a new approach todealing with nagging issues Essentially it has to be the answer to thequestion ldquoIf they can send a man to the moon why canrsquot they rdquo
We found six technologies that can store massive amounts of data effortlessly perform at lightning speeds turn old assets like tape andserver disks into something new and put the cloud within reach of enterprise data centers
HOT STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
for 2012These six cutting-edge storage technologies
are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center
BY ANDREW BURTON RICH CASTAGNA TODD ERICKSON JOHN HILLIARD RACHEL KOSSMAN SONIA LELII ELLEN OrsquoBRIEN DAVE RAFFO
FRANCESCA SALES CAROL SLIWA SUE TROY
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
1
As usual our hot techs mix equal parts of cutting-edge cool and practi-cality Object-based storage throws out tradition and replaces file systemswith a simplified flat-file approach to managing data Linear Tape FileSystem goes the other way and adds a file system to tapes to make themlook like disks Both are timely arrivals on a storage scene thatrsquos begin-ning to buckle under the weight of too much data
With multi-level cell (MLC)flash storage the medium is themessage as rapidly developingtechnologies have turned thisrelatively inexpensive type of solid-state storage into an enterprise mainstay But even asflash hogs the headlines server-based storage is making a come-back with innovative ways toshare directly attached assets
Last year we predicted thatcloud storage services wouldemerge but this year wersquore putting a finer point on that prediction and singling out two technologies that will make it easy to inte-grate on-premises systems with cloud-based storage resources that essen-tially treat the cloud as just another tier
OBJECT-BASED STORAGENetwork-attached storage (NAS) isnrsquot the only way to handle file storageItrsquos not even always the best way
Object-based storage systems are gaining a lot of attention and startingto make inroads as an alternative to scale-out NAS Object storage has unlimited scalability is less reliant on processing and high-speed networksand is a fundamental building block of public and private cloud storage
But itrsquos not perfect Object storage generally isnrsquot a high-performancetechnology and it lacks the standardization of file systems making ittougher to move from one vendorrsquos object storage system to another Itrsquosalso poorly suited to data that frequently changes and often eats up morestorage capacity than traditional data storage But the technology makes itpossible to archive huge datastores cheaper with less power and within asmaller footprint than high-performance NAS
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
14 STORAGE December 2011
With multi-level cell(MLC) flash storage themedium is the messageas rapidly developingtechnologies haveturned this relativelyinexpensive type ofsolid-state storage intoan enterprise mainstay
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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efficiency and flexibility with Fluid Data storage from Dell
Scan the QR code with your smart phone to see how Fluid Data gives PING the freedom to innovate and grow as a business or visit wwwcompellentcomPINGDrivesInnovation
PING drives innovation with Fluid Datatrade storage
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Object storage uses unique identifiers to access data instead of physicaladdresses The data is accessed based on the name and unique ID thestorage system reads the metadata and object ID Therersquos no need for asingle global namespace cache coherency or high-speed networks
Object storage products are sold by a mix of established vendors and innovative startups Products from established vendors include EMC AtmosDataDirect Networks Web Object Scaler (WOS) Dell DX Object Storage NetAppStorageGrid and Rackspace OpenStack Products from startups includeAmplidata AmpliStor Basho Riak Caringo CAStor Cleversafe SlicestorMezeo Cloud Storage and Scality Ring
ldquoObjects let you have ashared-nothing architecturewhere every node and controllermechanism doesnrsquot have toknow where every piece of dataresidesrdquo said Andrew Reichmanprincipal analyst at CambridgeMass-based Forrester ResearchldquoYou can scale bigger for cheaperAs we talk more and more aboutmassive multi-petabyte reposi-tories of data that scalabilitygets relevantrdquo
Object storagersquos characteris-ticsmdashparticularly its scalabilitylocation independence and accessibility via HTTPmdashmake it well suited for storage clouds The metadataallows administrators to apply rules that can deliver built-in multi-tenancyencryption and chargeback Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) MicrosoftAzure and Nirvanix Cloud Storage are storage clouds based on object storage
Other uses for object storage include archiving (particularly medicalimages) and file storage that scales to multiple petabytes
The Eacutecole Polytechnique Feacutedeacuterale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland turnedto Amplidata to help digitize more than 5000 hours of video archives fromthe Montreux Jazz Festival dating to 1967 When the project began two yearsago Alexandre Delidais EPFLrsquos director of operations said he couldnrsquot find adisk storage system that met his needs and price point EPFL bought LTOtape and continued to search
Delidais said he was looking for storage that could scale to petabyteswith low energy and power consumption had faster restore times thantape and fit his budget
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
15 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoObjects let you have a shared-nothing archi-tecture where everynode and controllermechanism doesnrsquothave to know whereevery piece of dataresides You can scalebigger for cheaperrdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
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Long Backup Windows
Slow or Failed Restores
Hours of Your Time Wasted
More Virtual Servers to Backup
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
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Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
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How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
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bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
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bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
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enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
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See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
2
ldquoNothing was really available with those requirementsrdquo he said ldquoWecouldnrsquot find a disk-based technology they were all too costly or used too much energyrdquo
Delidais discovered AmplidataAmpliStor in late 2010 EPFLbought 1 PB of storage to startand will split that between twolocations and replicate Delidaissaid hersquos approximately 20through his digitization project
Of course there still arenrsquotthat many multi-petabyte stor-age implementations so objectstorage isnrsquot yet mainstream
ldquoNot a lot of buyers really need hundred-petabyte repositories nowrdquoForrester Researchrsquos Reichman said ldquoBut it seems to me the long-termoutlook will be object storage Itrsquos a better way to do file storagerdquo
MLC FLASH STORAGEThe signs are everywhere that MLC NAND flash will continue its upwardtrajectory next year and officially overtake higher-cost single-level cell(SLC) flash in enterprise systems ushering in a new era of more affordablesolid-state storage
Manufacturers have ramped up production of MLC-based solid-statedrives (SSDs) and even major storage vendors that were once hesitant to use them are joining the ranks of earlier adopters such as IBM andHewlett-Packard (HP) Co
Framingham Mass-based IDC predicts that MLC-based drives willcommand 52 of enterprise solid-state revenue next year and climb to60 in 2013
Jeff Janukowicz research director of solid-state storage at IDC saidMLC-based SSDs have reached a point where theyrsquore better able to handlethe readwrite mixes that traditional IT requires thanks to advancementsin their architectures algorithms and controllers
Online marketplace eBay Inc turned heads this year with its 100 TB deployment of Nimbus Data Systems Incrsquos S-class solid-state storagewhich uses a more industrial-strength flash variant known as enterpriseMLC (eMLC)
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
16 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoNot a lot of buyersreally need hundred-petabyte repositoriesnow But it seems to methe long-term outlookwill be object storagerdquo
mdashANDREW REICHMAN principal analyst Forrester Research
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
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of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
17 STORAGE December 2011
Not quite hot (yet)
D
D
D
D
D
D
GLOBAL BACKUP DEDUPLICATIONThe experts all say this is a great technology for jacking up dedupe ratios load balancingand scaling But two incorrect perceptions have slowed its adoption itrsquos only for large-scale environments and you donrsquot really need it especially if you use specific targets toback up individual applications such as Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint Donrsquot believe itWe think it will become a must-have feature as users build up their dedupe environments
MOBILE DEVICE BACKUPThis may be a technology waiting for the market to materialize Many backup apps nowhave mobile backup capabilities including CommVaultrsquos and Symantecrsquos and there arespecialized apps from the likes of Copiun and Druva along with plenty of cloud backupservices But maybe you have higher priorities right now or your users havenrsquot demandedit so yoursquore not going to sweat a few lost laptops Get a grip with millions of smartphonesand tablets finding their way into corporate data systems itrsquos not going to get any easier(see ldquoMobile backup Therersquos an app for thatrdquo)
PRIMARY STORAGE DEDUPLICATIONWe said it was hot in 2009 and again in 2010 but performance concerns and the contin-uing debate over its usefulness have stolen some of its sizzle Target deduplicationproviders have yet to embrace the technology due to concerns over performance degradation And its usefulness in primary storage is still being debated We thoughtDellrsquos acquisition of Ocarina Networks IBM grabbing Storwize and Hitachirsquos buyout ofBlueArc (with its OEM deal with Permabit) would spark interest Not yet
ldquoBIG DATArdquoHard to tell if itrsquos hot or not when we canrsquot even agree on a definition Does big datamean humongous files complex data sets or just the massive amounts of unstructureddata organizations deal with All of the above it seems and itrsquos all great fodder for thehype machine There are some real products out there and more vendors are gearing upto release products but right now itrsquos still mostly hype
BUNDLED STORAGE STACKSIt wasnrsquot hot last year and it isnrsquot hot now Why arenrsquot they more popular Follow themoney or more specifically how much it takes to get one EMC and Hewlett-Packard offer product bundles with pre-configured storage server and networking gear andsoftware NetApp gives you the directions on what to buy and how to assemble it (puttab A into slot B) Either way itrsquos going to cost you Not many companies can justify theexpense and vendor lock-in these days
STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOP INFRASTRUCTURE (VDI)Virtual desktops promise simplified management support and security What they donrsquotpromise is enough return on investment (ROI) when you figure in storage requirementswhich can be pretty tough when yoursquore dealing with hundreds or thousands of desktopsSolid-state storage might be the answer but itrsquos a costly solution
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
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3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
One of the main distinctions between the different types of flash isendurance The consensus is that SLC wears out after approximately100000 erasewrite cycles eMLC at 30000 erasewrite cycles and MLC at 10000 or less But the differentials are becoming less important as the MLC drive and third-party controller vendors make improvements
ldquoThese controller manufacturers have found that they can actuallywatch the flashrsquos behavior and as long as they keep track of every singleblock and how it performs they can use certain blocks well beyond the10000 limit and up into the hundreds of thousands of usesrdquo said JimHandy founder and chief analyst at Object Analysis in Los Gatos Calif
Even the erasewrite differen-tial between eMLC and MLC isstarting to become less of anadvantage and eMLC doesnrsquot appear to be gaining the level of popularity the industry expected according to Handy
ldquoeMLC costs more than MLCand itrsquos slowerrdquo he said ldquoandsince everybody is buying SSDsfor speed a slower solution is a really tough sellrdquo
Dan Mulkiewicz IT director at Carlsbad Calif-based High Moon Studiosa division of Activision Blizzard Inc which produces popular video gamessuch as ldquoWorld of Warcraftrdquo and ldquoGuitar Herordquo said even the least expensiveMLC SSDs have performed impressively
High Moon started with 10 MLC-based SSDs nearly three years ago inworkstations and soon added another 60 or 70 after application build timesdropped from 30 or 40 minutes to four minutes
ldquoI had to come up with a cheap solution and we took a chance and it paidoffrdquo Mulkiewicz said noting that SLC flash never became a consideration
He said the failure rate on the workstationsrsquo MLC drives was less than5 and manufacturer warranties have improved from a year to three yearscomparable to that of hard drives
So Mulkiewicz had no qualms using an MLC-based cache from GridIronSystems Inc to address an IO bottleneck with his VMware server farmMulkiewicz was impressed with the dramatic performance boost Inworst-case scenarios programmers and artists once waited 70 minutesfor the code to recompile after they submitted a change With the MLC-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
18 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoeMLC costs more thanMLC and itrsquos slowerand since everybody isbuying SSDs for speeda slower solution is areally tough sellrdquo
mdashJIM HANDY founder and chief analyst Object Analysis
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
Visit wwwefficientvirtualstoragecom to learn how your organization can drive greater
efficiency and flexibility with Fluid Data storage from Dell
Scan the QR code with your smart phone to see how Fluid Data gives PING the freedom to innovate and grow as a business or visit wwwcompellentcomPINGDrivesInnovation
PING drives innovation with Fluid Datatrade storage
Eric Hart NetworkInfrastructure Manager PING
3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
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SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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See ad page 23
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Storage designed for virtualization keeps custom golf club maker on par with progress
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Eric Hart NetworkInfrastructure Manager PING
3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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See ad page 53
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
3based cache the wait fell to less than 10 minutes
ldquoWersquore not only comfortable with [MLC] nowrdquo Mulkiewicz said ldquowersquoredependent on itrdquo
LTFSThe Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is expected to help usher in a tape renais-sance Itrsquos the first technology that lets users search for information on tapevia a file-tree directory making the process similar to searching disk storageUsers can drag and drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tapeopening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows andmaking long-term archival easier
LTO-5 the first tape format to support LTFS has media parti-tioning so a drive can write twovariable-length partitions oneach tape One partition has aself-contained hierarchical filesystem index and the secondholds the content LTFS presentsa file-structure-type interfacefor managing the files on tapeAll a user has to do is load thetape into a drive and the datacan be viewed by a browser or any application that has a tape attached to it
HP and IBM are the main developers of LTFS software and the LTFS openstandard is supported by the LTO Consortium HP supports LTFS in HPStoreOpen Automation while IBM released support for LTFS for librarieslast May with its IBM System Storage LTFS Library Edition Other companieshave delivered support for LTFS such as Crossroads with its StrongBox device and Cache-A offers LTFS capability with its flagship Pro-Cache5Power-Cache and Prime-Cache5 In addition Atempo is now fully compati-ble with the LTFS platform when using Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) a filearchiving product
LTFS is still in the early adoption phase with media and entertainmentas its sweet spot Robert Smith founder of 2PopDigitalcom which provideseditorial system support for post-production in the media and entertain-ment industry said LTFS will hit the mainstream when more archivingmanagement software supports the open standard
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
20 STORAGE December 2011
Users can drag and drop files to and from amounted LTFS formattedtape opening up new possibilities for incorporating tape into workflows and making long-term archival easier
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
User-Proof Your Google Apps Data
One simple mistake can topple your
domain your project and your business
Nearly two-thirds of all Google Apps data loss is due to user error
Google canrsquot protect you from yourself ndash but Backupify can Backupify provides the finest Google Apps backup and recovery solution on the market today With support for more than a dozenservices Backupify protects over 1 billion emails 250 million documents and over 100 terabytes of data across more than150000 accounts
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
4
ldquoIt will be the catalyst to using LTFSrdquo he said ldquoThen you can see whatrsquoson the tape instead of depending on a database thatrsquos telling you by thetape number or barcode If you have LTFS you can search for a file thesame way you do in a file system LTFS has lots of benefits in that regardrdquo
Randy Kerns storage strate-gist at Boulder Colo-based Eval-uator Group said the media andentertainment industry has themost immediate need for LTFSbecause of the requirement totransport data more efficientlyHe said archiving managementsoftware can be layered on topof LTFS so users can input re-tention periods and data accesscontrolsmdashthe technology will go mainstream once more archive manage-ment software supports it ldquoItrsquos really a managing archive rather than acollection of backupsrdquo he said ldquoCompanies have another alternative withtape thatrsquos more functional than just doing backupsrdquo
CLOUD GATEWAY APPLIANCESCloud gateway appliances are garnering attention as a great way to intro-duce cloud storage into an organization These devices are easy to set upand relatively inexpensive and users can start small and scale up easily
The premise of a cloud gateway is simple the appliance installs in adata center and acts as a bridge between on-premises storage systemsand a cloud storage service The bridge is required because public cloudstorage providers rely on Internet protocols such as REST APIs over HTTPrather than conventional storage-area network (SAN) or NAS protocols By connecting on-premises storage to the cloud via a gateway the cloudstorage service can seamlessly integrate with existing systems
Although the adoption rate of cloud gateways is still relatively modesta number of products have been released in the last two years and the attention theyrsquove received along with their potential to grab market shareis what has landed them on our Hot Technologies list
ldquoTherersquos a huge interest in moving data to the cloud and I donrsquot thinktherersquos any risk tolerance for user companies to deal with cloud providerAPIsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said Within the cloud storage market
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
21 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoIf you have LTFS youcan search for a file thesame way you do in afile system LTFS haslots of benefits in thatregardrdquo
mdashROBERT SMITH founder 2PopDigitalcom
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
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STORAGE
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
therersquos a need for improving local performance mitigating extra latencyissues and adding security features
ldquoThose are some of the key attributes of cloud gateways that I think willmake them big enablers for user companies to use cloud storagerdquo he said
Cloud gateways can be integrated or combined with other products andsome vendors have already set up partnerships with backup and storagevirtualization vendors for example TwinStrata is partnering with Veeamand DataCore while StorSimple has joined forces with Microsoft The chal-lenge is that many users are unaware of cloud gateways and their benefits
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
22 STORAGE December 2011
REPORT CARD
How our predictionsfor 2011 fared
AUTOMATED STORAGE TIERINGYoursquod be hard-pressed to find a storage vendor that doesnrsquot offerautomated tiering so we were pretty smart on that count Butusers Thatrsquos another story as adoption is a bit slower than weanticipated
DATA REDUCTION IN PRIMARY STORAGEIBM buys Storwize Dell buys Ocarina and Permabit OEMs its technol-ogymdasha perfect storm for data reduction in primary storage right Not exactly Maybe itrsquos just the calm before the storm but itrsquos takinga long time for this technology to stir things up
VMWARE APIs FOR STORAGEVMwarersquos concession that storage vendors might be better at manag-ing their products might be the biggest story of the year Everythingabout storage for virtual machines (VMs) got easier this year fromconfiguring to backup
SCALE-OUT NASWe were probably a year early with this call There was plenty oftalk about scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) but when itcame to actual deployments not so much
MULTIPROTOCOL STORAGE ARRAYSHardly any arrays ship these days with support for just block or filethe days of those one-trick ponies are just about gone Even thoughNetApp is probably wondering what took us so long to make thisprediction wersquoll still give ourselves a pat on the back
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICESIt just seems like we hear the word ldquocloudrdquo about a thousand timesa day but the truth is that it became a real factor for enterprisedata storage this year Our surveys show nearly a quarter of you are using some kind of cloud storage service like Yogi Berra saidldquoYou could look it uprdquo
B
C
B+
B-
A
B+
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
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1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
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Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
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As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
IBM the IBM logo and ibmcom are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at ldquoCopyright and trademark informationrdquo at wwwibmcomlegalcopytradeshtml
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
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Shortest backup window via post-process data deduplication
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Fast reliable offsite disaster recovery with rapid restore
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Long Backup Windows
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
5
ldquoI think cloud gateways will find a home eventually as users get morecomfortable with cloud storage technology I see them getting more em-bedded and leveraged as cloud storage appliancesrdquo said Terri McClure asenior analyst at Milford Mass-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
Some industry experts expect data storage vendors will build this tech-nology into their arrays if the concept catches on That would make it easyfor onsite storage systems to treat a cloud storage service as simply anotherstorage tier without having to take an intermediate step
ldquoI think the jury is still out as to whether this should be a fully separateproduct and a fully separate vendor or if what wersquore really talking about isa feature of other productsrdquo Forrester Researchrsquos Reichman said
Another factor that has slowed acceptance of gateways is that the vendorsoffering these products are mostly startups
ldquoItrsquos going to take some market education and probably some effectivepartnering on the part of those smaller vendors to really get their productto be considered by buyersrdquo Reichman noted
Taylor Higley director of information services at the American Federationof Government Employees (AFGE) recently deployed TwinStratarsquos Cloud-Array cloud gateway When asked why he chose a TwinStrata gateway hisanswer was simple
ldquoReally it was the ability to leverage cheap Amazon S3 storage but stillhave the security and reliability of Veeamrsquos Backup amp Replication systemrdquohe said ldquoTwinStrata was the missing piece to make it all workrdquo
VIRTUAL STORAGE APPLIANCESWith server virtualization firmly entrenched in data centers server-basedshared storage is making a significant mark in the form of virtual storageappliances (VSAs) These software-based systems enable the advancedcapabilities of server virtualization without expensive dedicated storagehardware They run inside a virtual machine (VM) and create shared storagefrom the storage attached to the physical server a VM runs on In 2012 weexpect to see more companiesmdashespecially small- and medium-sized busi-nesses (SMBs)mdashturning to server-based storage as an inexpensive way tosupport server virtualization
Virtual storage appliancesmdashsuch as HPrsquos StorageWorks P4000 VSA Soft-ware and DataCorersquos SANsymphonymdashhave been on the market for a numberof years but VMware Incrsquos rollout of its vSphere Storage Appliance is ex-pected to inject more interest into this tech vSphere Storage Appliance
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
24 STORAGE December 2011
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
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for Pricing and Additional Information
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Shortest backup window via post-process data deduplication
Fastest restore with full recent backup copy on disk
Scales seamlessly from 1TB to 130TB with no forklift upgrades
Fast reliable offsite disaster recovery with rapid restore
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Long Backup Windows
Slow or Failed Restores
Hours of Your Time Wasted
More Virtual Servers to Backup
Disk Backup with Deduplication
f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
which is targeted specifically at SMBs runs across multiple hypervisors aggregating direct-attached storage (DAS) into pooled storage
ldquoWersquore going to see incredible evolution happen inside the virtual infra-structure by vendors like VMwarerdquo said Jeff Boles senior analyst anddirector of validation services at Hopkinton Mass-based Taneja GroupldquoAnd the virtual storage appliance technology coming out for VMware [is] just one more very innovative technology from one of the hypervisorvendors and storage vendors better be reading between the linesrdquo
Others see VMware as leveraging its skill set in virtualization to broadenits technologyrsquos appeal to morecompanies ldquoI think that VMwaresees storage as a stumblingblock keeping people from ex-panding their server virtualiza-tion capabilities and to someextent [VMware] has decided totake it in their own hands to tryand fix itrdquo said George Crumpfounder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland
Virtual storage appliances make more sense for SMBs because theyrsquorebased on iSCSI rather than Fibre Channel (FC)
ldquoYou donrsquot find a whole lot of traditional businesses traditional enterprisesdeploying VSAsrdquo Taneja Grouprsquos Boles said ldquoIf theyrsquore traditional enterprises[and] theyrsquore doing some private cloud or public cloud stuff you might findthem deploying [virtual storage appliances] thererdquo
One vendor with a big footprint in the virtual storage appliance market isDataCore with its SANsymphony-V software which virtualizes storage acrosspools of heterogeneous systems turning commodity servers into SANs
Barren County Schools in Glasgow Ky turned to SANsymphony-V after aserver consolidation project The IT department had consolidated 30 physicalservers to four running 30 VMware VMs It then replaced EMC SANs with twoDell servers running DataCore software
ldquo[The EMC system] didnrsquot have the processes the caching to do some ofthese more advanced features so [the key] in looking at SANsymphony wasthe fact that they didnrsquot care what hardware [was used]rdquo said Cary Goodedistrict technology service specialist at the Barren County Technology Office
Barrenrsquos IT department makes use of DataCorersquos high-availability mirroringcapabilities resulting in 10 TB of usable storage in high-availability mode
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
25 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoWersquore going to seeincredible evolutionhappen inside the virtualinfrastructure by vendors like VMwarerdquo
mdashJEFF BOLES senior analyst and director of validation services Taneja Group
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
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More Virtual Servers to Backup
Disk Backup with Deduplication
f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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See ad page 53
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
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6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
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Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
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copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
6for redundancy ldquoWe can use an entire node because the other node hasthe exact same data in a live environmentrdquo Goode explained ldquoTo get thatout of a hardware systemmdashI canrsquot even imagine what the price tag on thatwould berdquo
INTEGRATED CLOUD BACKUPCloud backup has been around as a consumer service for years and itmakes a good deal of sensemdashkeeping an offsite copy of data is prettymuch disaster recovery 101 However in the enterprise space a number of roadblocks have hindered widespread cloud backup adoption One ofthe biggest issues limiting its acceptance was that it required an entirelynew backup approach and a cloud-specific backup application But thatrsquoschanging and a number of major backup software vendors now allowusers to back up directly to the cloud
CommVault Systems Incrsquos Simpana lets you back up to any cloud vendorthat supports the REST protocol such as Amazon Microsoft Azure Nirvanixor Rackspace Symantec Corprsquos Backup Exec can back up to Symantecrsquoscloud while the firmrsquos NetBackup has an option to back up to NirvanixEMC NetWorker can ship backup data to EMC Atmos-based cloud storageservices
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote thiswhole style of data protection to customers who donrsquot have a second site where they mightreplicate data tordquo said LaurenWhitehouse a senior analyst at ESG
Cloud integration with tradi-tional backup products allowsusers to create onsite disk back-ups for fast restores but ratherthan sending copies offsite ontape they can now easily choosethe cloud as an alternative for disaster recovery In the event a largeamount of data must be restored from the cloud many services can shipdata on an appliance or disk to a customer site Other users might see it asan archiving tier sending older data to the cloud for long-term retention
Some data storage managers opt to continue to rely on somewhat
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
27 STORAGE December 2011
ldquoTheyrsquore trying to promote this wholestyle of data protectionto customers who donrsquot have a secondsite where they might replicate data tordquo
mdashLAUREN WHITEHOUSE senior analyst ESG
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
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f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
outdated backup technologies mainly because switching backup productscan be complicated And there may be resistance to new data protectiontechnologies because using them means adding a separate tool with theassociated management requirements But when cloud storage is sotightly integrated with a companyrsquos existing backup application those apprehensions quickly disappear
The addition of a cloud optionto legacy backup tools may bejust the push that some firmsneed to give cloud backup a shotAnother backup technologymdashcontinuous data protection(CDP)mdashprovides a good analogyAs a standalone product CDPsaw little adoption but when itwas integrated with backup soft-ware products that users were familiar with it went mainstream
ldquoBackup and long-term retention use cases are good examples of whereIT organizations can dip their toe into the cloud poolrdquo Whitehouse saidldquoItrsquos replacing the need to create tapes and ship those tapes offsiterdquo 2
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
28 STORAGE December 2011
The addition of a cloudoption to legacy backuptools may be just thepush that some firmsneed to give cloudbackup a shot
Disk-Based Backup With Data Deduplication Helps Eliminate Those Problems
Improve your backup and recovery with ExaGrid Systems
Visit wwwexagridcom or Call 1-800-868-6985
for Pricing and Additional Information
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Shortest backup window via post-process data deduplication
Fastest restore with full recent backup copy on disk
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Fast reliable offsite disaster recovery with rapid restore
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Long Backup Windows
Slow or Failed Restores
Hours of Your Time Wasted
More Virtual Servers to Backup
Disk Backup with Deduplication
f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
wwwSearchStoragecomServer_Virtualization
for storage pros
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
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bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
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for Pricing and Additional Information
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Fast reliable offsite disaster recovery with rapid restore
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Long Backup Windows
Slow or Failed Restores
Hours of Your Time Wasted
More Virtual Servers to Backup
Disk Backup with Deduplication
f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
wwwSearchStoragecomServer_Virtualization
for storage pros
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
ANY DRIVE Use any hard drive regardless of brand capacity or speed1
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1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
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editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
f
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
30 STORAGE December 2011
IRST A LITTLE MATH Consider an organization with 5000 employees 20 of whom areknowledge-based workers with a reason to have corporate data on their mobiledevices Then assume that each worker is carrying 20 GB of corporate data ontheir devices With a simple calculation we can determine that this hypotheticalorganization has 20 TB of potentially unprotected data stored on mobile devices
No organization would stand for a 20 TB hole in its data protection strategyinside its data center yet such holes are routinely ignored outside the data centerIronically the data floating around outside the data center is at even greaterrisk for loss Itrsquos easy to see how quickly small amounts of data across largenumbers of devices can add up to a significant problem
MOBILE BACKUPTherersquos an app for that
Users may be carrying a significant amount oftheir companyrsquos intellectual property on theirsmartphones tablets and other ultraportabledevicesmdashand that data needs to be protected
BY PHIL GOODWIN
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
drobocom
Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
ANY DRIVE Use any hard drive regardless of brand capacity or speed1
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1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
WHATrsquoS A MOBILE DEVICETo start addressing the issue of data protection for mobile devices letrsquos determine exactly what devices should be included under that term LaptopPCs would represent the most significant repository of mobile data and toooften theyrsquore overlooked as containersof valuable corporate data Rapidlygaining ground as data repositoriesare tablets and sophisticated smart-phones which wersquoll refer to as ldquoultra-portable devicesrdquo These devices haveinternal flash storage typically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GB and many have secure digital (SD) card expansionslots providing significantly more storage capacity And you can expectthe capacities of these ultraportabledevices will continue to expand dramatically
Organizations must recognize thepotential risk these devices representMost have well-defined policies thatprohibit the use of corporate devices for personal tasks But this line isroutinely crossed whether the nonconforming activity involves personalemail calls text messages or document creation or editing
Ultraportable devices make enforcing the line between personal andbusiness use even more difficult Users are increasingly employing personaldevices theyrsquove purchased themselves for business-related activities andpersonal tasks Examples include iPhones BlackBerrys and Android-basedsmartphones that people use to connect to their business email accountsiPads and other tablets may also be used to view send and receive businessemail using Web browsers and may be used to edit and store documentsSales reps may be able to download price lists proposal materials and othersales documentation using any Web-enabled device Itrsquos becoming increas-ingly impossible and impractical to prohibit the mingling of personal andbusiness use of ultraportable devices In many cases itrsquos a companyrsquos exec-utives driving the move to allow tablets to access corporate resources Andif itrsquos OK for the boss others wonrsquot be far behind
Itrsquos not unusual for a knowledge-based worker to have a laptop tabletand a smartphone Thus in our earlier fictitious company example 1000
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
31 STORAGE December 2011
These devices haveinternal flash storagetypically rangingfrom 8 GB to 64 GBand many havesecure digital (SD)card expansionslots providing significantly morestorage capacity
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
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bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
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bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
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bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
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bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
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bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
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bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
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bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
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SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
DYNAMIC SECURITY FOR THE GLOBAL NETWORK
Do All BAckup AnD RecoveRy SolutionS DeliveR FlexiBility AnD Simplicity conSiDeR youRSelF WARneD
[ Tough quesTion 8]
SonicWALLrsquos all-new Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Series easily and flexibly prevents data loss and downtime with continuous or scheduled point-in-time backup and one-touch restore featuring granular policy enforcement and data de-duplication CDP protects local and remote Windowsreg Mac OSreg or Linuxreg servers desktops or laptops Multiple disaster recovery options include Site-to-Site Backup Offsite Backup Local Archiving and Universal System Recovery With CDPrsquos granular protection administrators can reliably back up only business-related data CDP also lets administrators enforce global policies and schedules or allow users to set their own Data de-duplication technology optimizes storage efficiency by handling more data with less disk space Learn more about the easy-to-use and flexible SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Series at wwwsonicwallcomwarning
copy 2011 SonicWALL Inc SonicWALL and the SonicWALL logo are registered trademarks of SonicWALL Inc
NETWORK SECURITY
SECURE REMOTE ACCESS
WEB AND E-MAILSECURITY
POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
BACKUP ANDRECOVERY
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
wwwSearchStoragecomServer_Virtualization
for storage pros
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
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bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
knowledge workers might be toting around as many as 3000 devices allwith corporate data stored on them To deploy a backup solution for thisscenario you must address a high volume of devices with low volumes ofdata per device Bandwidth is rarely a problem but deployment standardi-zation support and updates make it a challenge
The deployment of ultraportable devices is growing exponentially so thequestion is how can IT managers get out in front and address the issueproactively The good news is that it may be easier than you might thinkThe bad news is that it may be more complicated than some think it will beLetrsquos dissect the issues and see why this is a good newsbad news issue
YOUR POLICIES MAY NOT BE ENOUGHAlthough organizations generally have clear policies regarding the separationof private and business use of devices they rarely specify data protectionrequirements or procedures Mobile device backup often falls between thecracks Backup is the domain of the data storage organization but PCs arethe domain of the end-user computing group and cell phones are typicallywithin the domain of the telephony or telecomm group Tablets havenrsquot founda place in most companies yet so they may just be the domain of the userSo the physical asset is managed by one group and the process by anotherneither group assumes ownership Hence the first step in establishing apolicy is determining who owns the whole operation In practice it will require the coordination of all groups
STORAGE
STORAGE December 2011
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
33
1 Leverage the PC as the central backup platform
2 Establish a laptop backup strategy
3 Worry about corporate data only not the entire ultraportable device
4 Standardize the products yoursquoll support one-offs are on their own
5 Consider a specialized cloud provider to take over the whole thing
How to get a handle on ultraportable backup
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
wwwSearchStoragecomServer_Virtualization
for storage pros
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
drobocom
Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
ANY DRIVE Use any hard drive regardless of brand capacity or speed1
ANY TIME Start with the capacity you need and expand on-the-fly
1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
This cross-functional complication is an excellent reason to consider out-sourcing the whole thing to a cloud backup provider Third-party providerswill manage the whole process including deployment management andtechnical support There may be cases however due to security compli-ance (or corporate governance) or ITrsquos reluctance to use third-party servicesthat make outsourcing an unattractive alternative In those situations ITmust instigate the data protection policy based on business requirements
Backup policies are ordinarily driven by recovery time objectives (RTOs)and recovery point objectives (RPOs) Mobile backup is a bit different andneednrsquot be as complicated RPO may not be easy to establish as it may bedriven by network connectivity a daily backup schedule or product optionsThe variables of ultraportable device availability make backup timing lesscertain than an always-on storage array in the data center Informationchanges on individual devices arenrsquot as volatile as data center devicesTherefore recovery certainty is moreimportant than backup timing More-over a 24-hour RPO is probably a vastimprovement over the intermittent ornon-existent data protection usershave today
The essence of a mobile backuppolicy is pretty simple who whatwhen and how The ldquowhordquo can be theuser (ie user-initiated backups) or systemsoftware control (ie pre-scheduledand automatically launched) The ldquowhatrdquo is the device the ldquowhenrdquo the back-up event and the ldquohowrdquo the backup utility Thatrsquos about as complicated as itneeds to get for typical applications and users
PCs THE CENTER OF THE MOBILE UNIVERSETo get a handle on ultraportable devices the first thing to do is to designatethe PC as the center of the mobile universe Some might argue that tabletsare quickly supplanting PCs as a primary device This may be true for certaintasks such as Web surfing video conferencing and even document lookupbut tablets still have a long way to go for effective document spreadsheetor presentation creation Tablets may be great display devices but PCs remainthe go-to platform for document creation (This article is being written on aPC while an adjacent iPad plays tunes) Nobody does any serious documentcreation on a smartphone and the inherent form factor of those devices
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
34 STORAGE December 2011
The essence of amobile backup policyis pretty simplewho what whenand how
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
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Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
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look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
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bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
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bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
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See ad page 53
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
makes it forever unlikely The larger size of tablets may allow them to evolveto supplant PC functionality but for the foreseeable future consider PCsthe hub of the mobile world
From an ultraportable perspective PCs play a key role as the centralrepository for syncing data with multiple devices This will most often in-clude calendars contacts email and the like Yes this data can and often issynced to external servers However BlackBerrys may be synced to a Black-Berry server Exchange to an Exchange server and so on By using the PC asa central syncing device the user has one central location to recover dataon a self-service basis The added inherent remote sync gives the best ofboth worlds with user self-service and protection from data loss Moreoverif one service experiences an outage users have a ldquohigh-availabilityrdquo solu-tion from other devices Not bad for whatrsquos essentially a no-cost solution
Placing the PC in this key role expos-es the vulnerability of most PC backupstrategies or more accurately the lackof a strategy Even though theyrsquore wellunderstood theyrsquore not necessarilywell protected Organizations that donrsquot have an automated laptop backupsolution must seriously consider oneConvenient in-house solutions areavailable from most name-brand backup vendors including CommVault EMCand Symantec and specialized vendors such as Copiun and Druva Remotelaptop backup is also a perfect application for the cloud as provided by well-known vendors such as Asigra Barracuda Networks Carbonite Mozy (EMC)and Norton (Symantec) Cloud-based solutions provide consistent policiesacross the organization while minimizing the impact on the IT organization
By using the PC as the central syncing platform it becomes the backupserver for the ultraportable devices In most cases the sync process is automatic In this architecture backing up tablets and smartphones takesless effort to protect corporate soft assets than one might think
DEVICE-SPECIFIC ULTRAPORTABLE BACKUPEven though a PC-centric approach will protect the majority of corporatedata the plethora of applications for smartphones and tablets ensures thatat least some users will continually push the devices into uses that no onecould reasonably anticipate Consequently IT organizations shouldnrsquot over-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
35 STORAGE December 2011
Organizations thatdonrsquot have an auto-mated laptop backupsolution must seri-ously consider one
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
wwwSearchStoragecomServer_Virtualization
for storage pros
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
drobocom
Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
ANY DRIVE Use any hard drive regardless of brand capacity or speed1
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1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Server Virtualization Dream for server admins
Nightmare
Get your virtual environment under controlCheck out our Top 10 Server Virtualization Tips for storage managers
wwwSearchStoragecomServer_Virtualization
for storage pros
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
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Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
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bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
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bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
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bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
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bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
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bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
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bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
look the need to back up the devices in addition to syncing themLetrsquos start with the easy part of backing up smartphones and tablets
For those devices that use an SD card or other such storage format userscan remove the card and copy it to a PC Of course this requires user disci-pline to do so on a periodic basis Period reminders from the help desk maybe enough to foster the desired behavior
The first thing one will notice when considering ultraportable backup is the fragmented nature of the task Pictures videos and music may bebacked up to iTunes Google Picasa or a PC Application backup may go to Titanium Backup (Android) or the Apple iStore When looking into thespecifics of these backup applications one finds that they tend to be veryuse-case specific Some may back up the Android home screen for examplewhile others sync contact and calendar information and still others backup files Users who are serious about data protection may be forced touse a suite of applications
This fragmentation obviouslymakes backup of ultraportable devicesmore complicated Even so it can bebeneficial because IT organizationscan tailor solution specifications forcorporate data only User data suchas pictures music and videos shouldrightly be the responsibility of theuser However a corporate decision to deploy a particular encryption prod-uct may interfere with user data if itencrypts the entire device This may lead users to disable the product thusdefeating the efforts of the IT department
The next thing one will notice when searching for ultraportable backupis a shortage of name-brand solutions Given the tens of millions of ultra-portable devices sold it would seem to have significant market potentialSymantec offers a beta version of Norton Connect for iPadiPhone backupin the Apple App Store The app itself is free but it requires a Norton OnlineBackup subscription Of the other 32 applications for ldquodata backuprdquo in theApp Store all are boutique-type solutions that donrsquot appear to be gearedtoward enterprise deployment
As IT organizations decide how to cope with corporate data on ultra-portable devices there are many factors to weigh The first is how tocope with very large device populations unpredictable connectivity and
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
37 STORAGE December 2011
A corporate decisionto deploy a particularencryption productmay interfere withuser data if itencrypts the entire device
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
drobocom
Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
ANY DRIVE Use any hard drive regardless of brand capacity or speed1
ANY TIME Start with the capacity you need and expand on-the-fly
1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
highly individualized environments Despite these difficulties best-practiceorganizations will address the need to protect corporate assets Cloud-based solutions offer the advantages of offloading the deployment man-agement and support to specialists Cloud providers will also be preparedto address the needs of enterprises
For organizations that prefer to architect and manage their own solutionthey must first decide which part of the IT organization will own and man-age the solution In deciding what tools to use theyrsquoll find that ultramobilebackup becomes a stack of its own By focusing on what data is valuableto the organization much of the peripheral personal data can be ignoredThe task is to reduce the number of variables to those that count and thusmake enterprise deployment a manageable process 2
Phil Goodwin is a storage consultant and freelance writer
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
38 STORAGE December 2011
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
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Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
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bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
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bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
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bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
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bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
New drives Old drivesBig drives Small drivesANY DRIVE ANY TIME
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Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to unique any drive any time flexibility
ANY DRIVE Use any hard drive regardless of brand capacity or speed1
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1For the DroboPro Drobo B800i B1200i and B800fs only enterprise-grade drives are supported
Visit wwwdrobocomtechnology for a free whitepaperor wwwdrobocomtrial to sign up for a risk-free trial
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
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Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
QUANTUM CORP one of the brand names that helps define the tapelibrary category has finished among the top three in three of ourprevious five Quality Awards surveys for enterprise tape libraries In the sixth edition of the service and reliability ratings it breaks
through with an impressive overall win highlighted by a clean sweepof the five rating categories If that wasnrsquot sweet enough Quantum alsotopped the charts among midrange tape libraries equaling its enterprisefeat of five category wins and romping to victory
Thatrsquos not to suggest the other product lines represented in the surveywere slouchesmdashthe average of the overall scores for enterprise productswas second to only the last Quality Awards survey and the midrangegrouprsquos overall average missed a record by a mere 004 points
Tape might be playing a diminished or modified role in a lot of storageshops but based on the consistently high ratings this category receiveswe can only conclude the products are more fully featured easier to useand more reliable than ever
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
40 STORAGE December 2011
BIGand SMALL
Quantum tape libraries lead the fieldAfter finishing well but never winning in past Quality Awards surveysQuantum tape libraries romped through both the enterprise andmidrange categories this time around BY RICH CASTAGNA
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
information regardless of format mdash Iron Mountain With unmatched experience putting us at your side makes
information easier to manage We can do more together
Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
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See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Overall ratingsENTERPRISE Quantumrsquosoverall average of 655outpaced tough competi-tors in IBM (637) and Oracle Corp (634) IBMwas particularly tena-cious finishing second in three categories andthird in the other two Oracle rode one second-place finish and consis-tently strong scores to its third-place finish
In winning Quantum showed particular strength in the initial productquality and technical support categories It won the other categorieswith smaller but still convincing margins Coming in second this timeIBM maintained its record of always finishing in the top three since the inception of the enterprise tape library Quality Award surveys
MIDRANGE Quantumbested an even largerfield of competitors in the midrange group andwon by an even largermarginmdash686 to 652mdashover IBM As it did in theenterprise group IBM displayed remarkableconsistency adding thissecond-place finish to its four seconds and onethird in previous surveysOracle placed third with a642 that just trailed IBMBut Quantumrsquos mastery of the midrange was clear with across-the-boardcategory wins in the five rating categories and the only above-700 cate-gory ratings for product features (706) and initial product quality (703) Ina near replay of the enterprise contest IBM came in second in four of thefive categories ceding the second spot to Oracle for initial product quality
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
41 STORAGE December 2011
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Enterprise tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 686
652
642
638
618
604543
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 655
637
634
621
Midrange tape libraries OVERALL RATINGS
Your Information is at RiskProtect What Matters Most
As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
is not at risk Partner with the company thousands have trusted to store protect and manage their
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Safeguard your Information Visit us at ironmountaincom
categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
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How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
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bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
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See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
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bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
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See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
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bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
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As the amount of information your organization has to manage and protect continues to grow the challenge
of managing the potential risk increases exponentially How can you ensure your organizationrsquos information
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categoRIze aRcHIVe IMage dIScoVeR deStRoY
copy2011 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain and the design of the mountain are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
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bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
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bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Sales-forcecompetenceENTERPRISE Quantumsure knows how to startout on the right foot withits usersmdashat least thesurvey numbers certainlysuggest that Quantumscored highest on all sixstatements in the sales-force competence cate-gory for a total of 633with IBM (621) nipping at its heels for eachstatement
MIDRANGE Quantum was nearly as awesomeamong the midrangeproducts garnering topscores on five of the six statements for an impressive 661 IBM just barely nudged outQuantum (644 to 641) for the statement ldquoMysales rep keeps my inter-ests foremostrdquo IBMrsquos 644average put it in secondwith Oracle (631) takingthird Dell Inc andHewlett-Packard (HP) Coalso netted scores higherthan 600
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
43 STORAGE December 2011
Enterprise tape libraries SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos reps and resellers know their customersrsquobusinesses as evidenced by its two highest categoryscores 653 for ldquoMy sales rep is knowledgeable aboutmy industryrdquo and a 639 for ldquoMy sales rep understandsmy businessrdquo
bull IBM was the only other vendor to score 600 or higher on all the statements topped by a 634 for ldquoThe vendorrsquos sales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
bull Oracle just missed an all-600-plus score sheet dipping a mere 003 below on one statement butnotching a solid 627 for having a knowledgeable support team
Midrange tape librariesSALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was consistently strong in this categorywith its top scores for knowledgeable support teams(676) and being easy to negotiate with (675)
bull IBM and Oracle received 600-or-higher scores on all six statements while Dell just barely missed thatmark with a 599 on one statement
bull The lowest across-the-board average was 593 for ldquoMy sales rep keeps my interests foremostrdquo
661
644
631
619
603
578512
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 633
621
614
597
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
44 STORAGE December 2011
Initial productqualityENTERPRISE Quantumbuilt an average score of 674 by beating thecompetition on everystatement in this categoryBut once again all thevendors scored well withHP IBM and Oracle trail-ing the leader but just007 points apart And allvendors earned 600 orhigher on all six of thecategory statements
MIDRANGE Quantummight have been buildingup its momentum as itcharged through the othercategories It cracked the700 mark for four of thesix statements in initialproduct quality on its wayto a category average of703mdashone of its two 700-plus category scores Oracle with a score of675 that could have beena category winner in otheryears placed secondwith IBM not far off the pace at 665
Enterprise tape libraries INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos scoring was again notably consistenttopped by three 683 ratings for products that requirelittle daily intervention provide ease of use and repre-sent good value
bull Tape vendors must be doing something right IBM(663) and HP (662) had their highest marks for ease ofuse while Oraclersquos 649 was its second highest score
bull The grouprsquos 650 average in this category standssecond only to the previous surveyrsquos 667
Midrange tape librariesINITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum snapped up 700-plus scores for needinglittle intervention (718) ease of configuration (706)good value (706) and easy installation (700)
bull Oracle just missed the 700 mark with a 696 forease of installation and scored well for ease of useand configuration
bull All the scores in this category were strong theoverall category average of 654 effectively tied the previous high of 655
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
703
675665
660
642
640592
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Oracle
IBM
HP
Quantum 674
647
641
640
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timewwwliliencom
STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE With Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management
Organic growth unstructured les increased retention requirements plus more and more business process being digitizedhellipdata is growing at an alarming rate with no sign of easing up What is the proper growth strategy given the various types and value of your data sets
How do you navigate the sea of choices when architecting the optimal storage platform relative to performance availability manageability exibility and cost
How do you maximize the value of your data leading to the best business decisions
As a full-service Solutions Integrator Lilien addresses these critical objectives We develop customized data management strategies oer best-of-breed products and recommend process improvements Our comprehensive approach allows us to properly congure and integrate your data managementsolution with other aspects of your IT infrastructure including enterprise computing virtualization analytics and business continuity strategies
Lilienrsquos Storage amp Data Management Practice oers bull Backup amp Restore bull Big Data amp Analytics bull Archival amp Compliance bull Storage Networking bull Consolidation bull Security bull Strategy Development bull Systems Assurance
With Lilien yoursquoll be prepared Please visit us at wwwliliencom or call 888-545-4361
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
46 STORAGE December 2011
ProductfeaturesENTERPRISE IBM managed to slow downthe Quantum juggernauta bit in the product features rating categoryit wasnrsquot enough to denya victory but certainlyenough to give the com-pany a run for its moneyQuantum edged out IBM672 to 663 although IBMmanaged to prevail ontwo of the eight categorystatements gaining itshighest marks for man-agement features anduser interface
MIDRANGE Quantumkicked into overdrive with its second 700-pluscategory score a veryimpressive 706 that resulted from scoringmore than 700 on sevenof the eight categorystatements Rarely out of the top three state-ment leaders in this category IBMrsquos 663earned it second-placehonors while Oraclersquos655 put it in third
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum had the only 700-plus statement scorewith a 715 for scaling it was just shy of 700 for performance (695) and an overall feature set thatmeets usersrsquo needs (690)
bull IBMrsquos highest scores were for scaling (678) overallfeature set (674) and performance (673)
bull All four vendors rated highly with all statementscores coming in above 600
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT FEATURES
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantumrsquos highest scores were for managementfeatures (a very impressive 724) and interoperability(721)
bull IBMrsquos top mark (681) was for overall feature setwhile Oraclersquos high score was earned for loading and ejecting tapes efficiently (673)
bull Scores were strong for the entire field with arecord product features category average of 639
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Dell
Oracle
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 672
663
654
636
706
663
655
646
637608
557
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
47 STORAGE December 2011
Product reliabilityENTERPRISE In the reli-ability category Quantumcame in second on twostatements and was tiedon another but it stillmanaged to roll up thehighest mark (646) Thatslight chink in Quantumrsquosarmor wasnrsquot enough forIBM (633) or Oracle (629)to prevail
MIDRANGE The productreliability category is typically something of an Achillesrsquo heel formidrange tape librarieswith scores dipping compared to the othercategories Thatrsquos trueagain for the overall average (615) but not for Quantum which mustered an excellent680mdashthe highest winningscore wersquove ever seen for midrange product reliability IBM finishedsecond with a score(646) that would havebeen a winner in three of the previous five tapelibrary surveys Dell (630)broke into the top threeby just barely edging outOracle (626)
Enterprise tape libraries PRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum ldquostumbledrdquo if you can call it that on non-disruptive updatespatches (613 to IBMrsquos 624) andproviding upgrade guidance (636 to Oraclersquos 643)
bull IBM tied Quantumrsquos 641 on the statement ldquoThisproduct experiences very few bugsrdquo
bull Usersrsquo tape library expectations are apparently being met with an overall 650 average for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo
Midrange tape librariesPRODUCT RELIABILITY
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Quantum was buoyed by a 718 on the statementldquoThis product requires very few unplannedpatchesupdatesrdquo
bull Quantum won all but one of the seven statementscoming in fourth to IBMrsquos 624 for ldquoPatchesupdatescan be applied non-disruptivelyrdquo
bull With the exception of IBM most vendors weretripped up by the patchesupdates statement withmost getting their lowest scores on that statement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
Sony
HP
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
680
646
630
626
607584
531
HP
Oracle
IBM
Quantum 646
633
629
609
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
Sometimes More is Less
Coraid delivers more for less more enterprise-class storage more performance more simplicity Starting at less than $600 per terabyte and scaling to multiple petabytes Coraid Ether-Drive storage delivers more performance than Fibre Channel at 20 the cost with storage arrays that can be deployed in less than a minute
Thatrsquos disruptive
Thatrsquos the kind of economics that could get you promoted
With Coraid more is less
wwwcoraidcomor call 706-548-7200 Redefining Storage Economics
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
49 STORAGE December 2011
TechnicalsupportENTERPRISE Tech sup-port is often the finalmeasure of a productrsquosvalue as responsive andeffective support canoutweigh skimpy featuresets or other shortcom-ings Quantumrsquos winning649 was achieved by cop-ping the top spot for sixof the eight categorystatements Oracle (634)scored highest on theother two statements fora second-place finish infront of IBM (628)
MIDRANGE For technicalsupport it was anotherstatement sweep forQuantum on its way to a677 the second-highesttech support categoryscore ever for midrangetape libraries Quantumrsquosscores were high andconsistent ranging from a couple of 660 scores to a 694 IBM racked upanother second-place category finish with a641 while Dell put up a 634 for another third-place finish
Enterprise tape libraries TECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull Oraclersquos two statement winners were a 623 for having knowledgeable third-party partners and a 626 for providing adequate training
bull No support surprises for tape users The higheststatement average for all vendors was a 643 for ldquoVendor supplies support as contractually specifiedrdquo
bull Overall there was only one sub-600 statementscore which suggests vendors are doing a prettygood job of supporting their products
Midrange tape librariesTECHNICAL SUPPORT
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERS
bull The top four vendors (Quantum IBM Dell and Oracle)all scored above 600 on all eight statements
bull Vendors may want to revisit their training practicesas the statement with the lowest average score (590)was for providing adequate training
bull As with their enterprise cousins the top supportgrade for all midrange tape libraries was 635 for thevendors delivering support as promised
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
649
634
628
615
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tandberg
HP
Sony
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Quantum
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
HP
IBM
Oracle
Quantum
677
641
634
624610
600
523
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
50 STORAGE December 2011
Carry thatload buy it againAlthough not necessarilya measure of vendorservice or reliability the amount of data thatpasses through a tape library on a weekly basismay indeed be a gaugeof usersrsquo expectationsdependence and confi-dence in a product
Oraclemdashlikely due toits heritage stretchingback to StorageTek Corpand Sun MicrosystemsIncmdashsits atop both theenterprise and midrangegroups when it comesto the sheer capacity itsproducts churn through
We always make it a point to ask respon-dents given what theynow know whethertheyrsquod make the sameproduct purchase againOften the ldquobuy againrdquonumbers run contraryto the ratings largelybecause users oftenfeel a degree of loyalty(or at least familiarity)after having workedwith a product foryears This time aroundthe ldquobuy againrdquo numbersjibe pretty closely withthe ratings
HP
IBM
Oracle
Mid
rang
e
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Tandberg
HP
Dell
Sony
IBM
Quantum
Oracle
HP
Quantum
IBM
Oracle
Ente
rpri
se
68
61
4939
45
43
37
34
29
27
26
Heavy hitters Average TBs backed up per week
Mid
rang
eEn
terp
rise
91
88
8876
94
92
88
87
85
84
730 20 40 60 80 100
Tandberg
Oracle
Dell
IBM
Sony
HP
Quantum
Oracle
Quantum
HP
IBM
Would you buy this product again
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
52 STORAGE December 2011
About the surveyThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed to identifyand recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in fivemain categories sales-force competence initial product quality product featuresproduct reliability and technical support Our methodology incorporates statisticallyvalid polling that eliminates market share as a factor Indeed our objective is to iden-tify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name reputationor size Products are rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where 800 is the best scoreA total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations
Products in the surveyThe following vendorsmodel lines of enterprise-class and midrange tape librarieswere included in this Quality Awards survey The total number of responses foreach finalist is shown in parentheses
ENTERPRISE
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co ESLEML Series (107)
IBM TS3400 or TS3500 (135)
Oracle Corp (Sun) StorageTekSL500SL3000SL8500 (72)
Overland Storage NEO 8000 Series
Qualstar Corp TLS or XLS Series
Quantum Corp Scalari500i2000i6000 or PX720 (41)
Spectra Logic Corp64KT120T200T380T680T950
or T-Finity
Received too few responses to be includedamong the finalists
MIDRANGE
Dell Inc PowerVault Tape Backup124T114T or TL4000TL2000
or ML6000 Series (168)
HP MSL Series (145)
IBM TS3100 TS3200 or TS3310 (111)
Overland Storage NEO 200s400s NEO 2000e Series
or NEO 4000e Series
Qualstar RLS Series
Quantum M Series PX502 Scalari40i80 or Scalar 2450 (17)
Sony (all models) (25)
Spectra Logic 20KT24T50
Oracle (Sun) StorageTek SL24 or SL48 (38)
Tandberg Data StorageLibraryT24T40T80T120T160
or StorageLoader Series (33)
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
rThe ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
54 STORAGE December 2011
EPLICATION TECHNOLOGY a staple of traditional disaster recovery (DR) strate-gies can also play a pivotal role in local data recovery processes Replica-tion isnrsquot new but itrsquos being used in new ways especially with the increasedpopularity of virtualization and cloud services models (These technologiesoften reduce the need to maintain on-premises physical system replicas)Optimization technologies such asdata deduplication and compressionhave also given replication technologya boost because they enable more efficient data transfers across local-area networks (LANs) wide-area networks (WANs) or storage-area networks (SANs)
But the larger contributors to repli-cationrsquos shift from DR standard to op-erational recovery tool are data growth and diminishing downtime toleranceAnnual data growthmdashaveraging 10 to 30 for most companies but ashigh as 40 or more for larger companies (those with more than 100 production servers1)mdashis wreaking havoc on ITrsquos ability to copy systems and data for recovery purposes and meet recovery time objectives (RTOs)
Companies of all sizes also report limited leniency for the span of timethey can do without access to applications and data For tier 1 data surveysby Enterprise Storage Group (ESG) reveal that for nearly three-quarters ofrespondents this amount of time is three hours or less For a little morethan 50 of those surveyed itrsquos one hour or less For many meeting aservice-level agreement (SLA) for this RTO would be a daunting task withtraditional backup approaches
hot spots | lauren whitehouse
Replication technology for day-to-day recoveryItrsquos not just for disaster recovery anymore Replication technology
is finding a place in the more common but just as crucial recovery of systems and data in ordinary operations
Companies of allsizes also report limited leniency forthe span of time they can do withoutaccess to applica-tions and data
1 ESG Research Report Data Protection Trends April 2010
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
55 STORAGE December 2011
REPLICATION TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEWReplication refers to technology solutions that create a mirror copy ofdata It can be performed on different infrastructure components includingthe host system and storage array or in the network Host-based replicationasynchronously replicates data regardless of storage array make or modelArray-based replication software runs on one or more storage controllersresident in disk storage systems synchronously or asynchronously repli-cating data at the logical unit number (LUN) or volume block level betweensimilar storage array models
Network-based replication per-forms like array-based replication buthas the advantages of running on anetwork-resident appliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems Therersquos also applica-tion- or database-specific replicationtypically packaged with or an add-onto the application Application-basedreplication copies a specific apprsquosdata to another instance of the application taking advantage of its intimate knowledge about that app to offer optimal performance and application integrity
Replication solutions can be broken into two main categories synchronous and asynchronous With a synchronous solution data iscopied to the replica (target) as soon as itrsquos written to primary storage(source) with the write to primary storage being acknowledged after thetarget storage array confirms the data was written to the replica In con-trast asynchronous replication acknowledges the write and then movesdata to the target replica introducing a lag in the synchronicity of systems
The differences between these approaches can be divided into threecategories bandwidth requirements latency limitations and the potentialimpact on applications Synchronous replication typically requires morebandwidth and latency limits it to a campus distance An asynchronousapproach is better for over-distance replication because latency isnrsquot afactor and low-bandwidth connections are better tolerated As its namesuggests a synchronous approach ensures that data on source and target
Network-basedreplication performslike array-basedreplication but has the advantagesof running on a network-residentappliance or intelli-gent switch and supporting dissimilarstorage systems
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
So how much do you think you know about RAID
Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our Exclusive RAID Quiz
And donrsquot forget to bookmark this page for future RAID-level reference
The Webrsquos best resource on storage for SMBs
Test your knowledge at SearchSMBStoragecomRAID_Quiz
Confusing
Hard to Remember
Useful
All of the above
Memorizing RAID leveldefinitions and knowing which
level does what can be
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
57 STORAGE December 2011
systems are in lock step But since the write acknowledgment is delayeduntil the data has been replicated any time delay could impact the per-formance of the application Asynchronous replication is far less likely toaffect primary application performance However asynchronous replicationcould get out of synchmdashso much so that it jeopardizes the ability to meetrecovery point objectives (RPOs)
REPLICATION RISKS REWARDSSome might consider replication a risky approach to satisfy backup require-ments Why Therersquos no way to roll back to a previous point in time Ifcorrupted data is replicated then the replica is damaged goods Thatrsquoswhy implementing snapshot or continuous data protection (CDP) technologywith replication may make more sense
Implementing a snapshot or CDP strategy locally for operational recoveryand asynchronously replicating the point-in-time copy to a remote loca-tion for disaster recovery would provide the failsafe measures to makereplication a more viable and reliable method of data protection This approach can also be more optimized since only the changed blocks between point-in-time captures are replicated Furthermore at either the source or target location recovery can occur to any previous point in time potentially improving RPOs
Replication has seen an uptick in adoption since ESG polled 400 IT pro-fessionals in North America regarding their organizationrsquos current andplanned data protection strategies and technologies In ESGrsquos 2008 survey30 of respondents cited replication use vs 46 today Similarly those respondents stating an expectation to deploy replication sometime in thenext two years is currently 37 compared to the 30 intending to deploy inthe 2008 study As pressure mounts to capture and more importantly re-cover ever-growing volumes of data within increasingly limited windows oftime replication for operational recovery should get serious consideration 2
Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery softwareand replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
58 STORAGE December 2011
iF YOUR JOB involves storing data you already know storage eats up budgetdollars faster than just about anything else in IT But as daily practitionerswe rarely notice just how many bucks storage is truly consuming The mar-keting hype for data storage products stays focused on magic bullets likeldquomore capacity per dollarrdquo or ldquomore IO per dollarrdquo but the cost of storageis about more than that
One of the best ways to considerthe true cost of storage is to thinkabout whatrsquos required to store a single piece of data over its entirelifetime This is called the ldquolifecyclecost of data storagerdquo and it includesthe technologies processes andworkflows across all types of stor-age This type of bottom-up look atstoring a piece of data over a periodof time not only helps us understandwhat data storage truly costs buthelps us determine what we shouldbe looking for when wersquore shoppingfor data storage products
The classic challenge for the strategic storage manager is that the vastmajority of data created in the data center starts its life on primary storageso storage purchasers tend to fixate on these costs But capital costs areactually more of a distraction than a real representation of what storagecosts Even worse the costs are even more skewed when you consider thedissimilar products that are typically part of most storage environmentsEven the total costs of primary data storage are often misunderstood Pri-mary storage is often poorly provisioned and underutilized a problem thatrsquoscompounded as more storage systems are added and more features are
readwrite | jeff boles
Determining the real cost of storageVendors tout dollars per gigabyte per IO
but figuring out what a data storage system will really cost your company is a much more complicated process
The classic challengefor the strategic storage manager isthat the vast majorityof data created in thedata center starts its life on primarystorage so storagepurchasers tend tofixate on these costs
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
licensed (you may need additional replication or copy functionality withmultiple systems installed) And yoursquore bound to see at least a linear in-crease in the time and effort required to manage the storage especiallywhen time-consuming tasks like data migrations are required
But the cost of storing data goes beyond just primary storage Each pieceof stored data is surrounded by an ecosystem of information services Dataprotection is the most obvious and it typically consists of several partssuch as the management of multiple disk and tape tiers and the logisticsof getting protected data offsite A holistic look at the cost of data protec-tion alone is likely to dwarf the capital costs of primary storage systems
There are plenty of other costs besides data protection Regulatory com-pliance and the changing nature ofintellectual property encourage ever-longer retention of data To hold ontomore data for longer periods of timecompanies must spin up entire infra-structures and establish practicesaround information archiving searchand retrieval Disaster recovery is yetanother data protection function thatcanrsquot be ignored and its cost can besignificant The replication enginesbandwidth consumption and dupli-cate storage infrastructure requiredfor disaster protection can easily induce some serious sticker shock
Taneja Group has done extensive benchmark testing of hypervisors forwhat we refer to as virtual machine (VM) density itrsquos based on the idea that different hypervisors are more or less efficient so that given matchinghardware some will be able to run more VMs or deliver better performanceWhen considering all the hardware licensing management effort and con-sumption of data center resources this can have an enormous bottom-lineimpact Recently wersquove also focused on ldquostorage densityrdquo which is a similarconcept It considers how a product or technology can help you shrink yourdata footprint when considered across storage capacity storage systemsbandwidth consumption and human interaction
Itrsquos not really a new idea rather wersquore just now starting to see solutionsthat attempt to bring together capabilities that used to come from manyseparate storage products In part itrsquos also a reaction to changing IT prac-
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
59 STORAGE December 2011
The replicationengines bandwidthconsumption andduplicate storageinfrastructurerequired for disasterprotection can easilyinduce some serioussticker shock
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
tices in the enterprise with virtualization becoming mainstream data protection practices have had to change and itrsquos not uncommon to see primary storage products that incorporate some aspect of data protectionSimilarly data storage products are featuring better optimization and secondary storage systems are raising performance and becoming moregeneral purpose
A number of vendors try to communicate this message in terms ofstorage efficiency But storage efficiency often implies a sort of softqualitative comparison and it can fool users into thinking that improvingstorage might just be about tweaking one or two of the most obvious dimensions of efficiency such as capacity optimization Whether we callit storage density or storage efficiency itrsquos more than a single dimension
Wersquove explored various examples of this functional convergence creatinggreater storage density in recent lab exercises I see those exercises asrepresenting the market as a whole each vendor in this consolidatingscaling-storage landscape is striving to enhance the value and competi-tiveness of their offerings But the real winners are users who are finallygetting storage technologies that can help enterprises scale their storageinfrastructures through better storage density rather than sprawl 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached atjefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
60 STORAGE December 2011
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The Webrsquos best storage-specific information resource for enterprise IT professionals
Find out the benefits drawbacks and functions of this technology with ourTop 10 Tips on Data Deduplication
wwwSearchStoragecomData_Deduplication
Data DeduplicationFad fixture or just a nice feature
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networkingNEARLY ALL Storage magazine readers polledmdash92mdashsay their firm is using networkedstorage Forty-five percent have one or two storage networks installed but 27have more than five separate storage networks And while itrsquos no surprise that 4 Gig Fibre Channel (FC) and 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are the most common net-works (60 and 51 respectively) eyebrows may raise a bit at the number of firmson 10 GbE (35) and 8 Gbps FC (41) Responding companies plan to buy an aver-age of 29 new Ethernet switches and 25 FC switches which should make vendorshappy but theyrsquod probably be disappointed to see the lukewarm reception FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) is getting Positioned as the great consolidator of FCand Ethernet networks FCoE is in production in 13 of reporting firms 8 are test-ing it and 54 checked off ldquono plansrdquo The picture gets a little rosier when peeringinto the future as 47 can envision a mix of FC and Ethernet running over FCoE as their ultimate storage networking configuration mdashRich Castagna
ldquo FCoE is likely two-plus years away and it scares the networkengineers In the meantime wersquoll focus on upgrading Ethernet and upgrading our FC network to 8 Gbpsrdquo
mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
62 STORAGE December 2011
60
Indicate your companyrsquos interest or activity related to FCoE
Say their Ethernet storage is on an isolated network
3
16
14
5
33
27
2
InfiniBand
1 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
10 Gbps Ethernet(NAS or iSCSI)
2 Gbps FibreChannel
4 Gbps FibreChannel
8 Gbps FibreChannel
Other
0 10 20 30 40
What would you consider your primarystorage network architecture
Which types of storage networks do you currently have installed
60 4 Gbps Fibre Channel51 1 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)41 8 Gbps Fibre Channel35 10 Gbps Ethernet (NAS or iSCSI)20 2 Gbps Fibre Channel4 InfiniBand1 10 Gbps FCoE
Respondents could choose more than one option
13
No plans for FCoE at this timeEvaluating FCoE
Currently using FCoE in a testpilot environment
Currently using FCoE in production8
2554
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
The ldquoBig Datardquoconspiracy
Occupy Storage
Hot techs for 2012
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsTape libraries
Replicate and recover
How much doesstorage cost
FC tops networking list
Sponsorresources
63 STORAGE December 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
JanuaryROBO Backup
There are several ways to protectremote offices and branch offices(ROBOs) which may or may notinclude centralized operations thatensure all data finds its way to themain data center We describe thescenarios cover the required soft-ware hardware and comm facilitiesand offer suggestions for when eachalternative might be a good fit
Quality Awards VI NAS SystemsIn the final installment of round six of the StorageSearchStoragecomQuality Awards we poll readers toassess their satisfaction with theservice and reliability of their net-work-attached storage systems
What Kind of DR Site is Best for Your Company
One of the toughest and perhapsmost expensive disaster recovery (DR) issues to resolve is determiningthe type of recovery site your firmrequires Wersquoll describe how a firmcan assess its DR site needs includingdetails related to the equipment andfacilities for the different types ofrecovery sites and typical costs
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark SchlackEditorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim HefnerExecutive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen JoyceContributing Editors
James Damoulakis Steve DuplessieJacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienSenior News Director Dave RaffoSenior News Writer Sonia R Lelii
Senior Writer Carol SliwaSenior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Assistant Site Editor Rachel KossmanEditorial Assistant Hillary OrsquoRourke
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrienAssistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman
Senior Site Editor Andrew BurtonManaging Editor Ed Hannan
Assistant Site Editor John HilliardFeatures Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyAssistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
Senior Site Editor Sue TroyUK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales
TechTarget Conferences
Director of Editorial Events Lindsay JeanlozEditorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine Subscriptions wwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 26
bull Backup and Restore for Google Apps - Free Trial
bull Liberate your data from the cloud with Snapshot (Free from Backupify)
See ad page 5
bull Case Study The Value of Server Virtualization and Unified Storage
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 12
bull Traditional Backup is Dead - Are You Prepared
bull CIO Research Whitepaper - Redefining Backup amp Recovery A Call to CIOs
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 19
bull The Architectural Advantages of Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
bull Data Progression The Industryrsquos Only Proven Automated Tiered Storage
bull Seven Ways to Lower TCO
See ad page 48
bull iSCSI vs Fibre Channel SANs Three Reasons Not to Choose Either
bull Coraidrsquos EtherDrive is ESG Lab Proven and Well-suited to Emerging IT Needs
bull Leveraging ldquoThe Power of Ethernetrdquo for your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
See ad page 39
bull Hard drives are becoming scarce but Drobo can help thanks to ldquoany drive anytimerdquo flexibility
bull Automated RAID thin provisioning and SSD performance tiering in one box for less than15k
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 29
bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
bull The Economics of Backup 5 Ways Disk Backup with Deduplication Improves Backup Effec-tiveness Cost-Efficiency and Data Protection
See ad page 23
bull Confidently maximize virtual investments with IBM Integrated Service Management
bull Analyst Whitepaper Storage-efficient Data Protection and Retention
See ad page 42
bull Cloud Tape Hybrid Data Protection Best Practices
bull Guide to Improving Your Tape Storage Practices
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
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bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
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- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
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SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Optimizing Backup and Data Protection in Virtualized Environments 5 Rules for BetterVMware Backups
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bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
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bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 45
bull Lilien Articles
See ad page 51
bull OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe Solid State Drives Designed for todayrsquos enterprise environments including cloud computing and data centers
bull OCZ Deneva 2 Solid State Drives Cost effective storage solution with best-in-class endurance amp reliability
See ad page 8
bull Data Deduplication for Dummies
bull Data Deduplication Technology A Guide to Data Deduping and Backup
enterprise
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bullWhen Good Backups Go Bad Data Recovery Failures and What to Do About Them
bull Cloud Appliance or Software How to Decide Which Backup Solution Is Best for YourSmall or Midsize Organization
See ad page 32
bull SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection Video Guide
bull Five Best Practices to Optimize Backup Management for Effective Data Recovery
bull SonicWALL CDP Case Study Video Continental Group
See ad page 53
bull Free Whitepaper The Future and Present is Virtual
bull Free Whitepaper Lightning Fast Recovery to and from the Cloud
- Cover
- December Table of Contents
- Big data conspiracy theories abound
- Occupy Storage
- Hot storage technologies for 2012
- Mobile backup Theres an app for that
- Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field
- Replication technology for day-to-day recovery
- Determining the real cost of storage
- 4 Gig FC 1 Gig Ethernet dominate storage networking
- Editorial mastheadJan 2012 preview
- Sponsor resource page
-