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UPTIMESigmaUptime

Vol. 10 No. 5

Sigma UPTIME2

SIGMA Solutions’ portfolio of cloud services andmanaged services helps you free up valuableresources so you can focus on strategic initiativesthat are core to your business and customers.

SIGMA cloud services provide a completetechnology stack to host your application withoutthe burden of hardware acquisition, provisioning,system administration, or maintenance. SIGMAowns the assets with responsibility for guaranteeduptime. You only pay for what you need and whenyou need it with elastic capacity on demand.

SIGMA managed services transfer the lifecyclesupport of your infrastructure to our team of highlyskilled engineers, who are orchestrated with acomprehensive methodology. We can provideblended support with your staff to manage systemsin your building or in co-location facilities. Allcritical components of your data center can beprotected and maintained including backup,administration, monitoring, change managementand recovery.

SIGMA’s local presence and flexibility provide thecustom solutions your organization needs for large-scale project implementations, short-term initiativesor one-time engagements. Whatever your needs,SIGMA is the best technology partner to solve yourdata center problems.

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Focus on your business

Not on your technology

3volume 10 number 5

Contents

4 Real Data Protectionfor Virtual Machines

Symantec NetBackup 7 can help organizationsprotect and recover information with greater efficiencyand reliability through a single, unified platform thatencompasses both physical and vir tual machines.NetBackup delivers complete virtual machine protection,with increased data backup and recovery speeds andbackup replication for fast, cost-effective disasterrecovery. It also reduces data stores and network trafficby integrating de-duplication everywhere, thus reducingoverall costs.

Analyzing ‘Big Data’Massive datasets put a strain on data storage

infrastructures, but they also create big opportunities.Next-generation business analytics tools helporganizatins examine historical data and detect patternsthat will improve decisions and provide better outcomes.Companies that can analyze precisely what they knowabout their customers and business partners, their supplychains and their operations can then make decisions thatcut costs, speed time-to-market and increase revenue.

Putting the Squeezeon Data Storage Growth

Real-time compression can enable organizations toreclaim existing storage capacity, achieve fasterthroughput, support high availability configurations andimprove forecast storage resource requirements. It isredefining the economics of storage, enabling customersto significantly reduce their storage footprint whileimproving the performance of their storage infrastructure.

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Sigma UPTIME4

Real Data Protection

for Virtual Machines

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Organizations adopting server virtualizationhave realized a host of benefits, includingserver consolidation, faster provisioning,higher utilization and lower energy costs.Virtualization brings new challenges to thedata center, however — particularly in thearea of backup and recovery. Traditional

backup platforms are inadequate for virtual machinebackup, leading many organizations to add backupsolutions specific to the virtualized environment.However, maintaining separate backup strategies forphysical and virtual machines further complicatesthe backup infrastructure, and fails to address over-arching issues of recovery speed and rapidly growingdata volumes.

“Organizations are looking for a solutiondesigned for the virtual environment yet integratedinto their overall backup and recovery strategy,” saidTom Prentice, Regional Manager, Houston/NewOrleans, Sigma Solutions. “They are looking forways to deal with the exploding data growth thathas been further fueled by virtualization. They arealso looking for lightning-fast recovery speeds for

their virtual servers. Symantec NetBackup 7 deliverson all three counts.”

Symantec NetBackup 7 can help organizationsprotect and recover information with greater effi-ciency and reliability through a single, unified plat-form that encompasses both physical and virtualmachines. NetBackup delivers complete virtualmachine protection, with increased data backup andrecovery speeds and backup replication for fast,cost-effective disaster recovery. It also reduces datastores and network traffic by integrating de-duplica-tion everywhere — at the client, media server and onthird-party appliances — thus reducing overall costs.

Simple, Complete VM Protection

NetBackup 7 simplifies virtual server data pro-tection by standardizing the backup of both Hyper-V and VMware machines. It also increases backupspeed within virtual environments through de-dupli-cation and block-level incremental backup technolo-gy.

“By leveraging NetBackup’s de-duplication andincremental backup technology within virtual envi-

continued on page 6

Symantec NetBackup 7 streamlines data backupand recovery for virtualized environments.

6 Sigma UPTIME

ronments, organizations can dramati-cally increase the speed of backupswhile reducing storage for virtualmachine backups up to 95 percent,”Prentice said. “NetBackup also enablesIT administrators to reduce the impactof backup operations on virtualmachines by using off-host for Hyper-Vand block-level backup technologies forVMware.”

NetBackup 7 also delivers efficientfile restore capabilities. Its patentedGranular Recovery Technology sup-ports instant file or folder recoveryfrom virtual machine image backups,allowing customers to reduce compara-ble virtual machine backup times by upto 50 percent and improve the speed ofrecovery for individual files.

“In a recent survey, organizationscited granular recovery within virtualmachine images as the biggest challengein virtual machine data protection,”said Prentice. “NetBackup 7 deliversinstant file recovery from a block-levelincremental backup for VMwarevSphere environments and easy recov-ery of an individual file or folder froman image-level backup of a Hyper-V vir-tual machine.”

Smart and Automatic

NetBackup 7 features VirtualMachine Intelligent Policy technologyfor VMware environments to automatethe discovery and protection of virtualmachines while enforcing existing dataprotection policies. Unlike other dataprotection solutions, this technologywill accelerate the transition to a virtu-al environment for organizationsdeploying a large number of virtualmachines or building a private cloudinfrastructure.

“NetBackup creates a faster pathto the virtual data center,” Prentice said.“Virtual Machine Intelligent Policytechnology minimizes the administra-tion effort required for high-perfor-mance VMware virtual machine back-

ups through greater awareness ofVMware vSphere resource usage.”

Integrated replication technologywithin the NetBackup platform allowsorganizations to transfer up to 95 per-cent less data between various loca-tions. This helps ensure quick and easyrecovery of applications and backupdata anywhere and at any time, reduc-ing costs and management cycles asso-ciated with tape-based disaster recov-ery. NetBackup 7 also adds backup cat-alog replication as a standard featurewithin the main console, which furthersimplifies and streamlines disasterrecovery.

“Auto image replication technologyallows customers who replicate databetween multiple sites or NetBackupdomains to make the backup data at analternate site instantly available forfaster disaster recovery,” said Prentice.

De-duplication Everywhere

De-duplication everywhere helpsorganizations reduce overall storageconsumption in physical and virtualenvironments by integrating de-duplica-tion technology into the backup clientand at the media server. By bringing de-duplication closer to the data source,NetBackup increases the speed and effi-ciency of backups in remote offices,

data centers and virtual environments,and reduces network traffic by up to 90percent. It also eliminates the need foradditional specialized hardware andconfiguration — customers simplyupgrade to the latest version to realizedramatic storage savings.

To help customers centrally managetheir data protection environments andprovide a single view of their backupand recovery operation, NetBackup 7also includes a built-in reporting andmanagement console called OpsCenter.OpsCenter delivers a single manage-ment view of any Symantec data pro-tection environment, and addsimproved reports for storage lifecyclepolicies, audit trails and licensing. Toolssuch as the workload analyzer allowcustomers to better tailor operations tomaximize hardware usage.

“Virtualization is changing the wayorganizations manage backup andrecovery processes,” Prentice said.“Net-Backup 7 supports this evolutionthrough a single solution that protectsboth physical and virtual servers. Net-Backup 7 also reduces data volumes atthe source, and provides for fast, granu-lar recovery. Symantec is offering orga-nizations a better way to manage grow-ing data stores and reduce complexityas they continue to add virtual serversto their data centers.”

Copyright © Symantec Corporation

Copyright © 2011 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. SYM-25

800.567.5964www.sigmasolinc.com

Don’t backup blind — poor visibility will slow you down and

cost you money. NetBackup 7, powered by Symantec V-Ray,

of fers patented visibi l i ty into vir tual f i le systems and

applications as well as transparent backup and recovery across

physical and virtual silos. V-Ray increases IT agility and paves

the way for realizing the true savings potential of virtualization.

Symantec NetBackup gives you confidence in a connected

world. To learn more, contact a product specialist at Sigma

Solutions.

8 Sigma UPTIME

I n the age of “big data” many orga-nizations are drowning in infor-mation but thirsting for knowl-edge. Organizations today collectenormous amounts of data fromnumerous sources, but lack the

ability to turn that information intoinsight.

“Big data” is a term used todescribe the massive amount of dataproduced by a new generation of sys-tems and applications. These aredatasets so large that they have tran-scended the ability of typical databasesoftware tools to capture, store, manageand analyze. Although the definition isnecessarily subjective, most analysts usethe term in reference to terabytes,exabytes or even zettabytes of data.

While this clearly puts a strain ondata storage infrastructures, big dataalso creates big opportunities. Forward-thinking companies are looking to next-generation business analytics tools toexamine historical data and detect pat-terns that will improve decisions andprovide better outcomes. Companiesthat can analyze precisely what theyknow about their customers and busi-ness partners, their supply chains andtheir operations can then make deci-sions that cut costs, speed time-to-mar-ket and increase revenue.

A Game ChangerThis is why CIOs say that business

analytics will be their top strategic tech-

nology investment over the next fiveyears — even ahead of more headline-grabbing technologies such as cloudcomputing and virtualization.

“The advent of business analytics isclearly a game-changing opportunityfor organizations that want to be moreefficient in their business processes andstill increase the likelihood of achievingneeded levels of bottom-line businessperformance,” said Robert Kugel,senior VP of research at VentanaResearch. “Without a strong businessanalytics foundation, organizations willnot be able to understand where tooptimize performance, let alone plan toachieve the goals required for guidingan organization's performance. Theorganizations that invest in business

Next-generation business analytics tools can deliverinsight, competitive advantage.

ANALYZING‘BIG DATA’

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analytics and collaborate across line-of-business areas and IT are most likely tobe innovating in their use of analyticsand to achieve increased operationalefficiencies.”

In a recent IBM survey of 3,018CIOs spanning 71 countries and 18industries, 83 percent of midmarketCIOs identified analytics as their top-priority investment area. In particular,CIOs are looking to invest in datawarehousing (64 percent), visual dash-boards (64 percent), master data man-agement (63 percent) and client analyt-ics (63 percent) that not only help thembetter utilize structured data, but alsounstructured data in the form of videos,blogs and tweets that can be obtainedthrough the social web.

“An increasingly sensor-based,mobile-enabled and instrumented envi-ronment — what IDC calls the Intelli-gent Economy — is driving big datatrends, not just in terms of volume butalso in type, complexity and rate,” saidDan Vesset, program VP of IDC's busi-ness analytics research. “Capturing,analyzing and managing such dynamicdata is increasingly viewed as a compet-itive advantage for organizations tosolve a variety of complex problems . . .and influence timely and better deci-sions.”

More than BINext-generation business analytics

goes beyond traditional business intelli-gence and reporting. Where traditionalBI tools are largely focused on answer-ing predefined questions with metricsthat are oriented to a consistent style ofreporting, these new analytics toolsoffer a more ad-hoc approach. Thefocus is on enabling end-users to createon-the-fly searches to uncover new pat-terns and insights. By delivering infor-mation online, rather than in staticreports, these new tools allow users todrill down for additional details.

A key difference is the ability toextract information from unstructureddata that isn’t recorded in neat rowsand columns on a spreadsheet, but is

scattered across the web or stored intext documents. In addition, integrationof collaboration and social media toolscan make it easier to share and com-ment on data.

In its recent report on the globalbusiness intelligence and analytics mar-ket, Gartner says SAS dominates theanalytic applications market, with SAP,Oracle, IBM and Microsoft also listedamong the key vendors. However, con-solidation in the market is creatingother players. EMC, long a dominantfigure in the storage market, now ispreparing to help clients figure outwhat to do with all that stored data.EMC last year purchased Greenplum,maker of self-service, cloud-based ana-lytics, and rolled out the first EMC-Greenplum appliance three monthslater.

Open-Source PowerhouseA once-small, open-source project

called Hadoop has emerged as one ofthe hottest analytics engines for largedatasets. Hadoop enables batch pro-cessing of unstructured and structureddata at massive scale using commodityhardware. Internet companies such asFacebook, Twitter and eBay use the

engine to crunch data. Given Hadoop’sgrowing popularity, EMC, NetApp andIBM all have recently jumped on thebandwagon by introducing Hadoop-based analytics platforms.

At a time when rapid technologyadvances such as cloud computing,mobile applications and social mediaare driving massive data growth, orga-nizations need the ability to extractmeaning from that data to meet shiftingmarket conditions. Next-generationbusiness analytics have transformed bigdata into big business by providingdeeper visibility into structured andunstructured data and improving deci-sion-making processes. That’s why IDCforecasts 7.2 percent compound annualgrowth of business analytics worldwidefor the next five years

“Analytics are more critical thanever to making successful business deci-sions and achieving maximum perfor-mance from business operations,” saidVesset. “We’re seeing increasing evi-dence that organizational performanceand competitiveness can benefit frombetter and more business analytics,which is why the analytics industry ispoised to continue its rapid growth inthe years to come.”

Many Still Rely on Spreadsheet-based Analytics

More than half of organizations still spend the majority of their time inunproductive data preparation and quality assurance processes ratherthan in applying business analytics to gain the most value from their

data, according to a recent benchmark study by Ventana Research. The studyinvolved input from more than 2,850 organizations.

Despite the obvious value of analytics and the ready availability of ana-lytics tools, the study found that the application of analytics remains a spread-sheet-based activity in 88 percent of organizations. Yet these same organiza-tions report issues with data accuracy and timeliness of analytics, and findthemselves at a competitive disadvantage against the most mature organiza-tions that are using predictive analytics to help determine future outcomes andmobile technologies to simplify access to analytics and metrics.

The study found that business and IT organizations use a variety of ana-lytics, but they have not yet automated many of the underlying data integra-tion and analytics operations needed to generate metrics. Moreover, the studyfound that businesses largely are not acting to improve their processes. Theresearch indicates that that only a third of organizations are planning tochange the way they generate and apply analytics in the next 12 to 18 months.

10 Sigma UPTIME

Data growth was cited as one of the top three datacenter challenges by 47 percent of respondents in arecent Gartner survey of representatives from1,004 large enterprises. It’s no surprise, then, thatorganizations are looking for ways to reduce the

hardware, software, administration and maintenance costsassociated with storage. Sixty-two percent of survey respon-dents reported that they will be investing in data archiving orretirement by the end of 2011. Other high-ranking IT pro-jects that will be employed to respond to data growth includ-ed storage consolidation, storage management, and datareduction techniques.

In the short term, data growth can be managed by free-ing trapped, underutilized storage through consolidation pro-jects. Long-term, however, organizations need to find ways toreduce the amount of data they store — particularly in high-cost Tier 1 storage.

Data reduction technologies have become commonplacein backup and archival solutions, but have been slower toreach the primary storage tier. However, new real-time com-pression technologies can deliver dramatic reductions in pri-

mary storage utilization without the drawbacks that haveplagued older techniques.

Real-time compression can enable organizations toreclaim existing storage capacity, achieve faster throughput,support high availability configurations and improve forecaststorage resource requirements. It is redefining the economicsof storage, enabling customers to significantly reduce theirstorage footprint while improving the performance of theirstorage infrastructure.

Reducing the LoadData de-duplication has become popular as a means of

reducing data storage requirements in backup and archivaloperations. Also known as global compression, commonalityfactoring and referential integrity, data de-duplication elimi-nates redundant copies of data to reduce storage costs andshrink backup and recovery times. By focusing on backupand archival, however, data de-duplication technologies failto apply data reduction techniques where data originates —in Tier 1 or primary storage.

Primary storage is for active data that is frequentlyaccessed by both end-users and key applications. It is themost expensive storage tier, requiring high performance, lowlatency and high availability. It is also the source of the vastamounts of data that organizations generate and use to runtheir businesses.

SQUEEZEon Data Storage Growth

Putting the

Real-time compression reducesprimary storage data volumeswithout performance degradation.

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The overwhelming majority of data begins life in prima-ry storage that is used to host mission-critical software suchas databases, email and transaction processing applications.But it’s not just generated once — it is replicated, distributed,warehoused, backed up and ultimately archived.to otherstorage tiers. If an organization can reduce its primary stor-age footprint, it not only saves capacity in Tier 1 but createsa waterfall of capacity throughout the storage infrastructureand cost savings across the data lifecycle.

Unfortunately, data de-duplication is not suited to pri-mary storage. While de-duplication may result in up to 20:1reductions in backup and archival data, it yields just 2:1reductions in primary storage at best. Worse, data de-dupli-cation simply requires too much performance overhead to beused in Tier 1.

Overcoming ChallengesData compression has not been widely adopted in pri-

mary storage either because performance concerns weremore critical than capacity savings. Simply put, Tier 1 datareduction must not impact performance.

Real-time, random access compression/decompressiontechnology, however, delivers the compression ratios and per-formance needed for primary storage data reduction. So-called lossless data compression maintains reliable and con-

sistent performance and data integrity through a compressedfile format that preserves all the information needed to accessor re-create the original data. Unlike data de-duplication, inwhich files are replaced with pointers that may point to thewrong reference, lossless compression ensures that dataintegrity is not compromised.

Real-time compression is different from traditional com-pression technologies in that it can drastically reduce theamount of data that must be stored — from 50 percent to 90percent. It enables IT managers to reduce the Tier 1 storagefootprint in the data center and, as a result, reduce associat-ed power and cooling costs and administrative overhead.

Real-time compression does for primary storage whatde-duplication has done for backup. It transparently com-presses primary storage without changes in performance,storage, applications, networks or processes. It overcomes thechallenges that have inhibited the adoption of data reductiontechnologies in the primary storage tier, delivering dramaticsavings without changing downstream storage processes suchas replication, backup and archiving.

Data growth and the storage costs associated with thatgrowth remain major challenges for many organizations.Real-time compression attacks the problem at the source —primary storage — and in so doing delivers real cost savingsand performance gains throughout the storage infrastructure.

As the global leader in scale-out storage,Isilon delivers powerful yet simple solutionsfor enterprises that want to manage theirdata, not their storage. Isilon’s products aresimple to install, manage and scale, at anysize. And, unlike traditional enterprisestorage, Isilon stays simple no matter howmuch storage is added, how muchperformance is required or how businessneeds change in the future.

We’re challenging enterprises to thinkdifferently about their storage, because whenthey do, they’ll recognize there’s a better,simpler way.

800.567.5964www.sigmasolinc.com

Copyright © 2011Isilon Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. ISL-02

It’s not just data, it’s your business.

REASONS CUSTOMERS CHOOSE

SIGMA SOLUTIONS

TRENGTH – Sigma has an unmatched ability to respond to customer

needs due to our scale, locale and experience in the data center. We are

small enough to deliver local, personalized service yet large enough to

handle highly complex project requirements.

NNOVATION – Our goal is to help customers leverage IT solutions to

streamline business processes, drive innovation and reduce time to

market. To that end, Sigma delivers technologies from industry-leading

manufacturers coupled with consulting and engineering services that

maximize business value.

UIDANCE – Our customers turn to us for expert solution design and

project governance services that accelerate the success of their IT

initiatives. Sigma mitigates our customers’ risks through our experience

and commitment to excellence in everything we do.

ANAGEMENT – Sigma is uniquely positioned to serve as a single point of

contact for full lifecycle management, maintenance and support of

converged and integrated technologies. Our expertise across the data

center and strong relationships with industry leaders enable us to quickly

resolve problems in today’s complex IT environment.

GILITY – Sigma’s comprehensive services enable our customers to

partner with one technology provider for solution design, implementation

and ongoing service. Sigma serves as the focal point for initiatives

incorporating diverse technologies and multiple IT disciplines.

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